


Vive le Vie Las Vegas

by MidwestWitch



Category: Actor RPF, Canadian Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, Las Vegas Wedding, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwestWitch/pseuds/MidwestWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Walker has trust issues. Every man she ever cared about walked away easily and Molly has no hope that any man is worth the trouble. That is, until a drunk night in Las Vegas changes the course of her life with a Canadian actor Molly was sure she would never see again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One - His

Part I – Matrimony

One – His  
Christmas, Two years ago

 

There she is.

As long as I live, I’ll never forget these, my own words. There she is; a seemingly random thought that popped into my head. Out of context, I’m sure it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, so I will try and explain as simply as I can.

I am the type of man that values the intelligence, humor, and companionship of a woman over any other superficial traits, physically or otherwise. I’ve always been adamant that I would not let a pretty face distract me from what I truly want out of life, and that is a woman with whom I can share my life. I knew, sooner or later, I would meet her. We would strike up a conversation and within those first few moments when it is most essential to connect with another human, I would know.

I was planning an intellectual conquest and what I get is a scene from an eighties Brat Pack movie.

I’ll make no fuss over it; I’m an actor, filmmaker, and musician, and I’m well recognized for all of it. I have accepted that getting to see my dreams realized comes with the territory, so when I would rather be sitting at home in my pajamas writing on a cold, stormy evening like this, I suck it up and come to the damn parties. I can’t deny that it’s good publicity, if nothing else.

So I threw something together at the last minute (I went back and forth about cancelling for a few days) and came down. It’s Los Angeles in the middle of the winter, so naturally it’s raining. The gloom and gentle trickle of water from the skies is only emphasizing the dark mood I’m in, making it that much harder for me to network effectively.

I finish my second beer, the one I promised would be the last one, and am intent on sweeping through and quickly ducking out. One of the wait staff, a thin, pale girl with dark eyes and deep purple streaks in her hair swept my empty glasses off of the table effortlessly. I tip her and give her a smile before standing up and readjusting my suit jacket. I turn to go, my eye drawing a path from here to the exit. This helps me mark my path of least resistance. My eyes sweep past the entrance, ensuring no one new has come in (anyone I might have to stay and schmooze, that is), and this is when it happens.

I immediately do a double take, because something has caught my eye. The second I realize that ‘something’ is a ‘someone,’ those three words enter my head.

There she is.

I have no desire to sit and dissect it. This woman is something special. If that was my first reaction, then I need to figure out why. I prefer to base my romantic assumptions on a woman’s personality and not my body’s automatic response to her.  
Basically I try not to let my dick do the thinking… as often as possible.

This is something else, though. I don’t even care that I have to stay at this party when I was so close to making my exit. I just want to know who she is. It isn’t her physical attributes that are alluring, although those are outstanding. No, it’s in the way she carries herself. She holds a beauty she is completely unaware of, within and without. She is the kind of woman that inspires art; an ethereal muse sent to a lowly artist, a man that does not understand and appreciate the gift he’s been given. I cannot fathom what it would take to learn every layer of this woman.

The thought repeats itself and becomes my mantra. Now I have to cross the room to tell her that she is the one. I can’t let her get away.

I try to keep my eye out for her as I start weaving through the party guests. The trickiest part is not the actual navigation but the attempt to avoid people that are anxious to talk to me. I’m sure I’ve missed greeting several of them. I’m not rude but I really don’t want to lose sight of this woman. She might end up disappearing to another level of the hotel and I won’t see her again.

I manage to work my way through, trying to appear as though I have something urgent to tend to so no one stops me. My clever ruse seems to work for a time, but I know sooner or later someone will question where I’m off to in such a hurry. Once I make it through the greater crowd of people, I see a flash of her hair briefly before it disappears through a corridor.

My eyes narrow and I am a man possessed. I start to stalk forward quickly, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. What is it about her that is so captivating to me? Right as I think I am about to find out, someone calls my name and I turn, ready to address them. The second my sight shifts from my pursuit, I know she is gone. My shoulders sag in disappointment and my heart feels like it’s plummeting into my stomach. I lost her and there’s no guarantee I’m going to find her again.

Instead of letting it get me too angry, I decide to shift my focus back onto the person calling my name. It’s a man I’ve been acquainted with for a little while but have never actually worked with, a charming and polite man named Tom Hiddleston. He’s also an actor turned filmmaker and I was able to check out his first film two years ago after it premiered at Sundance. It was impressive and I’ve been meaning to get a meeting with him ever since.

This is both incredibly convenient and annoyingly inconvenient.

“Yes, Tom Hiddleston, right?” I say, shaking off the last of my annoyance. I walk over and extend my hand.

He takes my hand firmly and smiles. “That’s right,” he says. “Sorry to just shout like a lunatic but I had to make sure I got your attention. You seemed a bit distracted.”

I take a deep breath, “A bit.”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt something important,” he grimaces. “I didn’t even think about that. Apologies.”

“It’s all right, really,” I say, because it is. What was I going to do when I met that woman anyway? I would have sounded insane. “I’m actually glad you stopped me. I keep forgetting to call and set something up.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah,” I say, and I reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone. “Do you have your schedule on you right now?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he says with a smirk. “I call her Samantha,” and he taps a silver band on his left hand. I cannot help but laugh at this comment. I’ve lived with my share of women and it’s amazing how quickly you become a forgetful idiot when you have someone who knows everything for you. After we share a chuckle he frowns a bit and starts looking around.

“Actually, I don’t know where she’s run off,” he says, still peering around curiously. “How about I take your number and we can figure something out? We’ll be heading back home in a few days so if you’re free before Wednesday, I’ll be able to sit down with you.”

This won’t work at all. It’s less than two weeks until Christmas and I have a ton of stuff to do. I really don’t even want to spare a second. I hem and haw for a few seconds, trying to see if I could rearrange anything but it’s not looking possible.

I lift my head up from my phone finally and before I can say anything to him, his gaze shifts from me and I see the radical change in his eyes. In less than a second, he has gone from polite professional to love struck teenager and he steps forward then, greeting a cute short blonde with a kiss. He wraps his arm around her and she turns to face me.

“Ryan Gosling, this is my wife, Samantha Chance,” he says graciously. The tone in his voice is different as he says her name; as though it is the only name he was ever supposed to breathe. It’s intense and passionate, and I know right away that I like this guy. “Samantha, Ryan.”

“Nice to meet you. Please call me Sammy,” she says, stepping forward to shake my hand. “It’s about time you two ran into each other. He’s been anxious to talk to you for ages.”

“Where’s Molly?” I hear Tom ask his wife quietly. “Did she and Chris get on?”

“They did,” she tells him in a lowered voice as well, “She said there were no sparks, but that he’s a really sweet guy. They’re still just talking.”

I am about to open my mouth to interrupt them so I can at least get Tom’s phone number before I leave. The way Tom and Sammy share even the most banal of conversation is far more intimate than anything I’ve shared with someone in a while and I’m slightly uncomfortable.

“There you are!” I hear behind me.

“Where’s Chris?” Sammy asks.

“Shop talk, so I came to find you – Oh my god! I am so, so sorry!”

I didn’t even get a chance to turn around and face the woman Sammy was speaking to before I felt a pair of small hands firmly grasp my ass, pushing me forward with the sheer force of it. Judging by the tone of her voice, I know this was not a purposeful act, but it’s still quite a shock to be grabbed so roughly like that in public. I am unable to move for a second, still trying to process what happened when this woman that Sammy referred to as ‘Molly’ comes into my line of vision.

There she is.

“Mac soith!” she whispers quietly. “You’re… You’re fucking Ryan Gosling.”

The irony of the situation strikes me then. That beautiful inspirational vision I had of this woman from before does not match up to the foul-mouthed klutz before me, but I don’t care. In fact, I’m relieved she’s real.

And with her standing in front of me, I can finally take her in completely. She is almost too overwhelming for the senses. Up close, she is a work of art come to life. She is a Greek goddess; her garnet colored tresses flowing down her shoulders like the waves of the Adriatic Sea. The glimmering jade of her eyes sparkles with passion and excitement. Her lips are full and ready, as dark as pomegranate and twice as delicious. And that body… A man can only be so determined to stick to his values before a body like this woman’s comes along… With the shapely hourglass figures and all the curves in the right places, this is the kind of woman I could get lost in for days.

“That’s me,” I spit out finally. “That’s me, fucking Ryan Gosling.”

“Well, Mr. Gosling,” she says, taking a step forward and extending her hand. I take it eagerly and she moves forward, close enough that I can see all the dancing fireworks in those eyes, “you have a nice ass. Do you work out?”

My jaw wants to drop but to tell the truth, I am so relieved that this mysterious beauty turned out to be a sassy, vivacious cut up that I simply laugh instead. “Actually I do,” I tell her once I have remembered that she asked a question. Rhetorical or not, answering will open up a conversation.

“You sure do,” she says with an appreciative and overly flirtatious wink and I find myself laughing again. What is it about this woman that makes me want to smile? “I’m Molly Walker, by the way. Yes, the Molly Walker.” I frown at her, confused until her face splits into a grin and she says, “I’m just screwing with you, I’m not famous.”

“You are certainly something,” I tell her. I look over to Tom and his wife, but they are oblivious to the exchange between Molly and me. I am glad of it, because I want this to be just between us.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she says confidently, but she averts her gaze as her delicious porcelain neck flushes red.

“That’s how I meant it,” I say, suddenly feeling the desperate, hungry urge to know everything I can about this woman. I take a step closer to her, narrowing the gap between us. From this close, I can see that Molly’s pale skin is shimmering with a gold glow and she is even more captivating than I could imagine. “How have I never met you before?” is the only half intelligible thing I can come up with to ask first.

“I’m here with the Hiddlestons,” she says, gesturing to the couple that has all but completely forgotten our presence. “Sammy’s my best friend and she thought it would do me some good to get out of Michigan for a minute.”

“You’re from Michigan?” I blurt out. This is a surprise, but a pleasant one. I enjoy traveling to Detroit to film and it’s one of the few places in America that kind of feels like home.

She nods, “Yes, I am. One of the few in my family that is, actually. Most of us are from Boston and the rest of us are from Ireland, like me mam,” she says these last few words with a perfect Irish brogue, something that up until now I didn’t realize was insanely sexy.

“Wow, that’s interesting,” I say, because I mean it. It also explains what it was she said before, in Gaelic, I assume.

“Oh,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “Please, it’s not interesting. What you do is interesting,” she says in earnest. I roll my eyes and shake my head, because I hate being inundated with compliments. It makes me uncomfortable. “That’s what I want to know about.”

“Well, I know all about me, I want to know about you,” I say, taking another step closer to her. I can’t seem to resist.

Molly smirks at me, knowingly and narrows her eyes a bit. “If you want to get to know me, it’s only fair I get to know you.”

“That’s true,” I concede. “Okay, you have a deal,” I say. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Uh…” she says, looking down at her empty wine glass. Her smile falters a bit and I see darkness cloud her face. “Sure. I think I could handle one more.”

“Wonderful,” I say, and I collect the glass and practically sprint to the bar. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can get back to her and figure out what it is about her that is just so enigmatic. It doesn’t take long before I’m back to her and after she takes a drink, she seems to forget any fears or worries that she may have had before.

The rest of the night happens like a dream. After we get halfway through our wine, I take a daring step forward and press my lips against her ear. I feel her body tense instantly at my touch, like something about me has electrified her. To be honest, that notion gives me great satisfaction. I ask her if she’d like to go talk somewhere more privately and she tenses again before nodding. I step back to look at her, make sure she’s all right, but she wears her face like one of those beautiful Renaissance goddesses, giving nothing away in her eyes except a stoic, other worldly confidence. We start moving through the crowd together, more packed than it was ten minutes ago when I tried to escape through it (was it only ten minutes ago? It seems like a lifetime has passed since then). For a second, we lose one another and I take another bold step in grabbing her hand in mine and keeping her close as we make it to a more secluded area.

I bite my lip and push the doors open, hoping she will be a team player and come out into the rain with me. It’s only a light drizzle, but I know how fussy women get at these events. Maybe she’ll refuse and we’ll have to figure something else out, but as far as I can tell, this is as private as it gets. No one is coming outside because most of the smokers here are dressed far too nicely to chance it.

I am not one of those people.

The door closes behind me and I turn hopefully, finding myself elated and relieved to see her there, a goofy grin on her face as she pulls her wrap over her head and hurries to catch up to me. “I’m a Michigan girl, what can I say?” is her explanation as she joins me. We manage to find one small palm tree that covers a small amount of area from the precipitation. It is a rather small area and we have to stand close together.

This is okay with me.

She joins me somewhat reluctantly. Her confident expression never falters and I just keep wishing I could figure her out. We get within a foot or two of one another and this is when the really intimate conversation begins. I mean, this close, what else could we do?

Well, what else could we do in public?

It started as any conversation would. I told her about growing up in Cornwall, my mom and my sister, I tell her about my dog and how, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s like a kid to me. I make sure to answer any questions she has for me, like what do I miss about Canada? I tell her, without a doubt, “Poutine. French fries and gravy,” and she stares at me as though I’m a strange foreigner that has just spoke in clicks.

Molly tells me all about her life as well. Her mother was born and raised in Belfast, Ireland, her father in Boston. They met while Molly’s father was in the Air Force and were married shortly after getting back to the States. She has two older brothers and one younger sister, all of whom she is very proud of and wishes she could see more. She owns and operates her own fully organic bath and beauty store and is negotiating with her lawyer to expand across the state.

Eventually, the conversation shifts and we start talking seriously. I tell her about what it’s like to be so inflexible with a relationship and how much I wish I could change it. I’ve lost many women I love to the rigidness of my demanding career, and as much as I love my work, I’d give anything to just settle down now. She confesses that she’s really here as a result of a blind date that kind of went nowhere. She explains that her friends, Tom and Sammy Hiddleston, were actually the ones invited to this event. Molly tells me, without going into too much detail, that she has just been through a rough break up. It was the kind of break up, she explains, that wasn’t necessarily devastating because of what he meant to her, but because of how it happened, she has had a hard time getting past it. My curiosity is definitely piqued but I respect her privacy enough not to question it. It seems like something I’m not meant to know.

Evidently, Molly was in such a state because of the breakup that it was starting to worry Sammy, her best friend. With a grim smile that I can tell is trying to come from a place of love, she confesses how angry she was when she first heard that Sammy had fixed her up for this event. However, the idea of an all-expense paid vacation to Los Angeles (somewhere she’d never been before) to attend a party full of people she’d only seen on her flatscreen? “Sign me up!” she declares. I grin, because there is so much truth to her and even though I barely know her, this is already my favorite thing about her.

“So what ended up happening?” I ask after she giggles and settles. I remember a ‘Chris’ mentioned, but if she’s supposed to be here with someone, I should probably have the explanation. Just in case.

“Oh,” she says with a laugh, an almost adolescent glimmer of ‘star struck’ etched all over the young woman’s face. “Well, the funniest part was that Sam didn’t tell me who she had set me up with. All she said was ‘our friend Chris,’ and left the rest up to my imagination. Then after we get here and get to the hotel, we got ready in Sam’s room and Tom calls out, ‘Hey, Chris is here!’ so I pop out to meet him… and it’s Chris fucking Evans. Like… what the fuck? No warning. NO warning. AT ALL. Like, ‘Hey, Molly, come out to LA and come to this glamorous party and meet some random dude, and oh by the way, it’s fucking Captain America. Prepare a girl, s’all I’m saying.” She says this last bit with a shrug and a sip of her sparkling wine. I can’t help but worship her a little. She’s so cool. I didn’t expect her to be cool.

“So it didn’t work out with you and ‘fucking’ Captain America?” I say sarcastically, air quoting the ‘f’ bomb.

“It didn’t work out with me and Chris ‘fucking’ Evans,” she corrects, matching my sarcasm, “Captain America’s not real, Ryan. He’s make believe.”

I gasp indignantly. “You take that back!”

She frowns and opens her mouth. Many a thought crosses her features but nothing comes out of her mouth. I start to laugh when she drops her shoulders, defeated, and confesses, “Damn. I’m blank.”

“Is that rare for you

“Indeed.”

I take another moment to appreciate her wit and I continue the conversation. “So, why didn’t it work out with you and Captain… Chris?”

She rolls her eyes, exasperated, and answers, “The thing was I put too much pressure and expectation on myself to make something happen. I forgot to account for the fact that just because Chris is famous and…”

“Hot,” I offer, because there’s no need for her to pretend she’s not thinking it. It’s not like it bothers me.

“Yeah,” she says, and her smile widens because she understands my meaning, “So I just forgot to account for the fact that sometimes people don’t click. I mean, he’s a really sweet, good-natured guy, and very funny,” she explains apologetically, as though I’m the guy’s best friend. “But I don’t know… there was no spark.”

I know what she means, all too well. I am truly a romantic at heart and I can understand and appreciate her predicament. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she says, shrugging. “I made a new friend. Can’t have too many friends.”

“That is a true statement,” I say, and we clink our near-empty glasses to this truth.

It’s not too long after that I suggest we refill our drinks and we are both shocked to discover that nearly two hours had passes since we had found this secluded spot to talk. It didn’t seem possible that that much time had passed.

Molly is scrolling through her phone. “Wow, I can’t believe I texted Sammy two hours ago. I feel like I just did that a second ago.” She chuckles and starts to type, “How about that?”

“I hope your friends aren’t worried,” I say, realizing how crazy it must seem that someone they just met decided to run off with their friend, in private. I shudder. It’s the cookie incident all over again…

“They’re cool, they understand,” she says, a soft, reassuring look in her eyes. “I. um… I explained the situation to Sam, and she completely understands.”

I frown a little, confused but intrigued. “What situation?”

Molly is slightly unsettled that I’ve asked her to explain but she also seems prepared for it. “You and me… I told her it wasn’t like with Chris, that it wasn’t a Ryan Gosling thing.”

“Well, that’s fortunate for me.”

“Come on, you ass! That’s not what I meant,” she says and I laugh at her frustration. “No, I just told her it was like a ‘Tom’ thing.”

“Tom? As in Hiddleston?”

She sighs heavily at my question, but heavily enough that I can tell she’s trying to be funny. “It has to do with how Sammy and Tom met. It happened eight years ago but it’s still a hell of a story.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing it.”

Molly’s eyebrows rise and her face breaks into a grin. “You’re a bit of a hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”

“You say it’s a hell of a story and then you don’t bother telling it?” I point out. “You’re being kind of a jerk.”

“A jerk!” she cries, still smiling.

“Yeah, a little.”

“Okay, okay,” she sighs heavily. She looks down at her phone and her face falls. “My carriage is about to turn into a pumpkin. The story has to wait until another time.”

“Not before I get a shoe. That’s the deal right?” She laughs but I do mean to at least get her number. I reach over and quickly snatch the phone right out of her hand. She seems to figure out what I’m doing right away because she doesn’t protest. “I’m giving you my number,” I explain to her, adding my name to her contacts list and setting up a funny name she’ll recognize me by, “and then I’m going to call my phone so I have your number,” and as I say it, I send the call. I feel the phone vibrate in my back pocket, so I end the call and hand her phone back to her.

“I guess going from house to house having all the maidens try on shoes is just too much a pain in the ass in LA, huh?”

“It’s the hills. The hills are terrible here.”

Molly is silent for a second but she gives me a weary smile before she takes a step closer and reaches to shake my hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ryan.”

I take her hand in both of mine and in an instant, we both feel it. Like a strong electric current pulsing from the tips of our interlocked fingers to the rest of our bodies, we both seem to be enveloped by something strong.

“Wow.”

“Whoa.”

We say this in unison, but we don’t pull apart. It takes just another few seconds before Molly reluctantly pulls her hand away, leaving my grip as slowly as possible. My heart skips a beat but she’s gone before I can recover.

It is about time for me to go as well, but before I do, I decide to have one last smoke before I go back in. I pull out the cigarette and light it, taking a much needed drag as I let the memory of the last two hours wash over me. I try not to overthink it, because I know I have a tendency to do that. I need to go with it. My first reaction to her has to be the right one.

There she is.

If I’m going to figure out what that thought means, I need to get to know this woman better. I know what I have to do. I whip out my phone and dial the number that just called my phone and I wait. When I hear a voice on the other end, I speak.

“You busy tomorrow?”


	2. Two - Hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone thank you so much for being so incredibly patient with me and the posting of this story. The last year or so has been insane with my son and I'm just now getting over all the crazy to settle down and do some writing. Things are back to normal and I'm really starting to feel for Molly and Ryan's love story so it's my duty to tell it. Please be patient and you will not be sorry!!!!
> 
> Thanks!!! Enjoy!

Two - Hers

Present Day

I am up to my damn eyeballs in paperwork and I am one more budget sheet from stabbing someone. As soon as the thought occurs to me, I pray that no one shows up unexpectedly to my office right now.

It’s been seven hours since I actually came home from work and started catching up the paperwork for my small business. I own and operate an organic bath and beauty supply and according to my accountant, I now have enough capital to go ahead with the second store in Marshall, a small town east of here.

Unfortunately, my accountant is on maternity leave and only has a first year college intern covering for her. This has left a better portion of the work to me. Normally, I don’t mind. I was good at accounting in business school, it just gets awfully repetitive and boring. This is why I prefer to be an owner and operator. That way I can sometimes delegate some of this unnecessary crap to another party.

Like my accountant who can’t help right now.

Instead of tussling with it anymore, I decide it’s best if I just go ahead and give up on trying to get any more of these stupid things done tonight. Data entry frazzles my brain and I have to just get up and get away from it.

I wander from my office upstairs down into the kitchen and into the fridge, where I have some Guinness chilled and ready. As cliché as it is for an Irish woman to have an Irish beer on hand in her fridge, it can sometimes be quite necessary.

I grab a quick snack and wander into my living room, curling up on the couch. The peace of mind I attain after stepping away from those dreaded Excel sheets is tantalizing and I don’t want to get up off the couch for anything anytime soon. The Guinness is already kicking in and I am so relaxed that I don’t even have the desire to turn the TV on.

Instead, a haunting pastime kicks in and I find my thoughts starting to get louder and progressively older. And, of course, as thoughts like this are wont to do, they pick the memories you most regret and don’t want to think about.

But there they are. Five faces, shining in my mind with the annoying persistence of an itch you get on the bottom of your foot while you’re trying to drive. My heart beats a little faster as I remember each of them in turn, the fun and fire that drew me to each one and sinks in defeat when the inevitable recall of each break up seeps back in.

Long before I was a businesswoman and entrepreneur, I was a simple second-generation Irish teenager from Grand Rapids, Michigan with an (insane) eagerness to become a starving artist, backpacking through Europe with only a canvas and my oils to sustain me. Yeah, it’s exactly as dumb as it sounds and my Ma killed that one immediately. She did not ‘come all the way to America to see her daughter starve in Ireland’ and I would attend college whether I liked it or not.

Thankfully, I came to my senses within a couple of years and didn’t make a big mistake. My best friend since third grade, Samantha Chance, was bound for college and anxious. We were both accepted into Grand Valley State University, a place I was eager to explore for their art program and all set to begin a wonderful experience with my best friend in college…

And then the bitch turns around, gets married, and leaves me for California!

I wasn’t angry with Sam, really, but the sudden and complete absence of my decade long companion was almost too much to bear. On the one hand, I am thankful that my pain was alleviated so quickly when I found the companionship of my first true love, Benjamin. On the other hand, I sometimes really wish that I had given myself more time to recover from Sam’s departure before I jumped in blindly.

Ben was everything you could want in a life partner. Not only was he gorgeous at six-foot two, golden God hair and blue eyes that shimmered like the Mediterranean, but he was brilliant. He was three quarters of the way through medical school to become a pediatric surgeon and wanted nothing more than to settle down and build a life right there in Michigan. My adventurous spirit still wild, this seemed less than ideal, but everything else about him was just so damn perfect that I threw caution to the wind and decided that it was worth it to settle in and get serious.

Serious it got, but it was fast. Within three months we were picking out apartments off campus and within six there was talk of marriage. Looking back I realize how insane it was, especially being nineteen years old, but at the time it was just the kind of impetuous and unpredictable that my life was craving, so I decided to jump in feet first.

Ben and I were married exactly seven months to the day after we first met. By the end of our ninth month together, we were at a clinic, wondering why we couldn’t get pregnant yet. By the end of our twelfth month together, my diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome (or PCOS, which is so much easier) had caused such a rift in our marriage that I was afraid we could not repair it. The doctor assured us that PCOS was not a diagnosis of complete infertility at all, that it would just mean we would have a harder time. That we may need to try other methods, that it would take time, but we could do this. That was right around the time they told my husband that his count was low, thereby reducing our odds of conceiving even more. After three months, Ben threw his hands up, told me that if he was going to have children at all, he needed to have them with someone where he at least had a chance.

The divorce was final before the second anniversary of the day we met.

Naturally, my defenses were up. I didn’t date very seriously until I was done with college, wanting to put my focus where it should have been for the past two years. I had a lot of catching up to do and was not going to let another asshole get in the way of me achieving what I wanted.

Once I graduated from college, I moved back home and accepted a job teaching art classes at the local community college. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills. That was where I met Adam, the first man after my divorce that I gave more than a second glance. We went out regularly for about two months but I knew after the first time we had sex that it was going nowhere.

It was that bad.

In terms of coming back to the dating world, not a terrible first. Adam was nice, in his own kind of goon-ish, frat boy way. He wasn’t terribly bright and my conversations about art often died off into silence. As far as men that made the asshole list, Adam is not on it.

Soon after Adam came Leigh, a cop that I met setting up for the local art fair. I was there presenting some of my students’ and my pieces and he was there as a police liaison. He wandered over, we made eyes, and it went from there. Leigh and I dated very on and off for over a year. He was verbally and emotionally abusive, threw things when he got angry and was quick to anger. Never violent toward me but I was never quite sure if he would cross that line.

But damn he was sexy. He didn’t possess the raw Greek god beauty that was Ben, but there was just something much more raw and rugged about it. Almost like you could imagine him doing that kind of masculine manual labor that requires the removal of one’s shirt. Combine that image with the raw, beast-like prowess between the sheets and you have a man you just cannot quit.

It nearly went down in flames but my friends and family were able to talk sense into me. It had only taken my experiences with Ben to keep me from running off and marrying Leigh just as stupidly. And there were plenty of times that I considered it.

Leigh took a lot out of me but by the time he was out of my life, I had to completely reclaim who I was. I started taking classes at the college where I was teaching to expand my education and eventually decided to look into some small business classes. It didn’t appear that my career as a teacher was going anywhere no matter how hard I tried. So I kept at it and came up with the idea to market organic bath and beauty products to people like me, people diagnosed with chronic conditions that could benefit from the right combination of homeopathic remedies and natural ingredients.

I started pushing my products online at first and when that seemed to really catch on, I decided to expand to a store front. After opening the store, I quit working at the college full time with an agreement to still take on the occasional night class.

The store was doing really well and the extra cash from teaching was the icing on the cake. It was a good time for me, being independent and feeling good about everything that was going on. I may have had a few bad relationships under my belt, but at 28, who didn’t? I had my best friend back in Michigan even though for her it was under rather rough circumstances. She had since divorced her cheating asshole husband and then found a man whom she’d fallen in crazy, stupid love with and had gotten pregnant by but was unable to stay with. Sam needed me and it had been too long coming to finally say how bad I needed her, too.

Once the store had really gained its footing, I decided to throw a Christmas party for my employees and patrons and other businesses to thank all of them for their help in keeping the store going. I had several young male customers that I had hoped could meet Sam, who desperately needed to move on from Tom, the man that fathered her now two-year old daughter. This had the opposite effect intended, as this was where I met Justin, an attractive young English professor I recognized from the exact college I had just recently quit entirely. We managed to find one another under the mistletoe and couldn’t deny the attraction we felt.

Things with Justin were slow at first, since he knew and understood my past with other men. I didn’t want to get overinvolved and lose myself like I had before, and Justin saw to it that it was not a problem. The next year of our lives was blissful and absent of any pressure to commit. I fell head over heels in love with the notion that I could have this kind of happiness for the rest of my life.

We celebrated our one year anniversary that Christmas the best way you can during December in Michigan; we went ice skating, sledding, and built snowmen. By the end of the day we were sweaty, red cheeked, and ready to sit down and enjoy the sunset. With hot cocoa in hand, the snow began to fall, and Justin turned to me, dark eyes glimmering behind his thick rimmed glasses as he simply whispered, “Marry me?” and I simply answered, “Yes.”

Since the divorce, my PCOS had never posed a problem. I hadn’t met a single man I could see myself having children with since Ben and hadn’t planned on it ever really being an option. Over the years, I had come to accept this realization and come to peace with it. I hadn’t come clean about it until then because I didn’t want something like that to burst the bubble. And even though I told Justin that I would agree to be his wife, taking another chance at marriage and commitment for the first time in nine years, I still couldn’t bring myself to come clean.

By the time I did, four months later, I knew I didn’t love Justin enough to marry him. He wasn’t so keen on marrying someone that would keep something like that from their future spouse. The engagement ended before it really had a chance to start.

I was content for the longest time to just be on my own, being Aunt Molly to my best friend’s little one, and gain peace from the knowledge that my products actually help people while also supporting my living. It is, quite literally, the American dream, especially to my Ma. She is all too excited and demands free products on a regular basis. She and my little sister are still my guinea pigs for new products.

That last floating face I see still hovering there, taunting me, is one that I have so much unfinished business with it is almost too much to even consider where it all truly began… and what could have gone wrong.

Before I can even think of his name, I am brought with a sharp, forceful jolt right back to the present when I hear the trilling of my phone on the couch next to me. All the faces and the fog disappear and my clarity comes back tenfold as I swoop up the phone, not recognizing the number, and answering with trepidation, “Hello?”

“Yes, is this… Ms. Molly Walker?”

“This is.”

“Ms. Walker I’m a nurse in the emergency room at St. Raphael Mercy Hospital. I’m afraid there’s been an accident involving a family member.”

I bolt out of my comfortable position embedded in the couch and jet into my bedroom, throwing things around dramatically as I try to find something clean and suitable to wear in public. “What’s going on?” I manage to choke out breathlessly, kicking off my sweats and pulling on a pair of jeans that probably have one or two more wears in them before they have to be washed. “Who is it? What happened?”

There’s commotion in the background and I hear several male voices shouting. “Hello?” I holler into the speaker when no one continues to answer. Things shift several times before they finally calm and the same nurse from before gets back on the line. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Walker, apparently you aren’t listed as an emergency contact, there was some confusion with the paperwork they brought in.”

“Can you just tell me what the HELL is going on?” I scream, frustrated beyond words. By the time I figure out what’s going on I’ll be there to choke her in person.

“Your husband was in an accident, Ms. Walker,” she says passively and slowly, like I’ll be in full out hysterics once I hear it, “he’s stable, but he’s yet to regain consciousness. We thought it best to call.”

I frown deeply. Someone has me very confused. I’ve been happily unmarried for thirteen years now. “I think you’ve made a mistake. I have no husband.”

“Uh…” she stammers, and my heart skips a beat as I hear her rustle through papers. Could it be that we never filed the divorce papers? Was I still married, somehow? “Yes, that’s where we were confused. He came in with a folder that apparently has your name on a marriage license. A Molly Walker and –” she is interrupted for a moment as more shouting occurs and a slight rustling when she comes back on. “Sorry about that,” my stomach twists into a knot as the next five words come out of her mouth, my entire world turning on its head.

“Molly Walker and Ryan Gosling.”


	3. Three - His

Three – His

Christmas, Two years ago

Sometimes I feel like one of the best and worst things about California is the weather. It is beautiful and mostly uneventful year round, but being Canadian makes me yearn for white Christmases again. It is almost enough to consider relocating, given the opportunity.

Tonight is one of those nights where I feel torn between the two emotions. The palm trees are decorated like Christmas trees, and to me that’s always been a bit strange. On the other hand, the mild weather has made this the perfect night, and tonight has to be just that.

The date I am planning for Molly has yet to begin. I am standing outside of her hotel, waiting for her to meet me outside. I made sure to tell her not to dress outside of her comfort zone. My plan is to take her for dinner and a movie in the park, where the seating is not exactly suited for any kind of fancy dress.

Surprisingly, I don’t feel myself getting too nervous. It is late in my life and after all the deep torment and heartbreak I’ve endured, pursuing a happy ending for myself has helped me to keep my heart guarded before I commit. There’s something about this Molly Walker that has jump started what is behind that thick wall and I have to make sure I still remain cautious.

And yet the second she steps outside of those doors, I feel a surge of adrenaline rush through my body, pumping pure and white hot in my veins. She’s taken my note about dressing down, but there’s something so insanely sexy about it that I feel I may not be able to contain myself. Her worn in jeans look comfortable and relaxed but fit against the curve of her ass and hips so deliciously my mouth waters a little. She’s cozied up into a lightweight distressed purple hoodie that appears to bear a university name I don’t recognize. The free flowing garnet curls from the night before are stuffed into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, just low enough to accommodate a bright lime green beanie.

Everything about her is so charming that it may take all of my willpower not to gather her into my arms and hold her until the sun comes up.

“You look great,” I finally whisper, my voice raspy. She gives me an adorable, coy smile and peers into me with her soulful eyes that I can tell are wise beyond their years. She can tell just how nervous I am, I know for sure. She leaves me my dignity and does not speak on it, which makes me that much more inclined to let it all go.

For her… I don’t know, it just all seems like it might be worth it.

“Where are we going?” she asks after the moment passes and I remember what I’m doing.

“Oh!” I turn around and grab the items I was hanging onto just before texting to let her know I had arrived. I suppose I’d been a little more nervous than I realized, since I had deposited those things because they were making my palms too sweaty. For our evening in the park, I had brought along a traditional picnic set; a basket filled with edible essentials, a good bottle of wine, and a large, flannel blanket perfect for our outing. She looked down at it when I presented it and for a split second I panicked, thinking she may not like picnics at all but her face split into a wide grin that made her delightful eyes sparkle.

“A picnic? How fun!” Her genuine excitement makes my heartrate quicken, an instantaneous reaction that I do not want to alleviate. At all.

“Actually, a movie and a picnic,” I inform her, unable to contain my own grin now. “It’s starting just up the street in about…” I tip the large parcel in my arms to check the watch on my left wrist, “ten minutes.”

“Wow, we should probably get going then,” she says and reaches up, grabbing the basket from the top of the pile. I contest her for a second but she shakes her head. “You’re not going to make it up the street if you can’t see. I’m capable of carrying a picnic basket,” with a wink she says this, my heart beating wildly out of place and every single nerve in my body on fire. There is nothing more attractive to me than a confident, competent woman and Molly is all that and more. The longer I am with her, the more I hear her lyrical voice and understand what kind of person she is, the more I feel compelled to her. Something in my body is drawing me in quickly, closely, and it is as frightening as it is exhilarating and I am unable to pull myself away. If I were a lesser creature I would drool in her presence.

She has cast a spell over me and we have not even truly begun the date portion of our date.

We make it to the park with little time to spare. Most of the good spots have already been claimed and there is a large crowd of people, the entire park abuzz with their pre-show chatter. My eyes sweep over the place, looking for a good, secluded but central enough spot where I can take Molly and hopefully gain some privacy. Notoriety has its drawbacks. I don’t even have a chance to express to Molly what I’m looking for when she takes my hand in hers unexpectedly and pulls me toward a spot that I neglected to see. It is a little further back than I had hoped for but it is less about the movie and more about the company tonight.

“How’s this?” she asks, presenting it to me.

“Just perfect,” I tell her, my eyes not moving from her face when I answer. I manage to tear them away when she looks back up at me. I do not want to seem too intense for her. I can sense she is guarded and I don’t want to push.

We set up our spot and sit down together, close enough to feel the warmth of each other’s breath but not our bodies. I suppose this is better, to be slow and steady but my blood races just being near her. The scent of this woman is driving me insane and it is taking a lot of patience to not let it get to me. She adjusts her position so that she is sitting cross legged next to me, facing the screen. Our arms are now touching and we sit like this long enough that I know it is not a mistake, she can feel it and she is not moving away from it.

I remember how she took my hand earlier and how off guard it caught me, so much so that I didn’t even have time to process it. I want a second chance at this feeling, so I take a deep breath and reach forward, grasping her hand in mine and intertwining our fingers. My skin is on fire and I gaze down at our clasped hands, then slowly lift my gaze to hers. My breath catches when I see her dark, emerald embers locked on mine, the same trepidation I feel sparked with a tinge of the excitement I knew we shared.

It is all I wanted.

The movie begins and we settle into one another, comfortable and cozy as we take everything in. It is only slightly hard to hear from our distance but I am not paying a lick of attention to the screen. My heart is pounding so hard I can’t hear anything. All I am aware of is the woman I am pressed up against and how good it feels.

After a bit longer I decide it is best to serve us what I packed in the basket, if only to separate myself from the thoughts I keep having. I am trying to be on my best behavior but something about Molly drives me to the brink of madness.

I pour her a glass of wine and she smiles at me when she takes it, a twinkle in her eye that seems mischievous and amused all at once.

“What is it?” I question, pouring myself a glass, recorking the bottle as I can and setting it safely back in the basket. I smile, anticipating the answer.

She sighs heavily, sitting back as she stares at her glass of Zinfandel, the amusement still dancing across those plush rose lips. “If you had told me even a week ago that I would be sitting here having a glass of white wine in a romantic park in LA with Ryan Gosling…” she chuckles, “it’s just… It’s one of those things that you have to sit back and admire for a second because it’s not something that happens often… Sam and Tom excluded, of course.”

“Yeah… what is with that? You said it was a long story.”

“The longest,” she says with a roll of her eyes but proceeds to weave a really lovely but complicated tale of two people that happened to fall into each other for one week, only to separate and reunite five years later with the added twist of a daughter conceived the week they were together.

“So for five years he didn’t know about Emma?”

“Well, four, technically,” Molly corrects. “It seems bad from where you’re sitting, I’m sure, but Sam had her reasons for keeping it a secret… And it definitely wasn’t for a lack of trying. Movie stars, well, it’s not like you’re easy to get a hold of…” she trails off and gazes into her glass before taking a long sip.

I shrug. I have no stake in their story. She was not my daughter and it was not my relationship, so it isn’t something I can judge. “I wasn’t in it,” I answer, reflecting my thoughts to her. “I can’t imagine a situation like that would be easy for anyone… But from the perspective of your friend, I can see how coming forward and announcing a pregnancy out of the blue could have made things worse rather than better.”

“That’s what she thought,” Molly tells me, taking another sip, “and I agreed with her. It’s hard enough to be a single mom without the press outside your window calling you a slut for falling in love with the wrong guy.”

The frankness of her comment catches me off guard and the tension that floats from her now tells me that she is fiercely protective of her best friend and will not hesitate to fight me on it, regardless of who I am.

I admire her so much. I lean forward and put my hand on hers. “Your friends sound like good people and I’m glad things worked out for them.” I feel her relax and she shifts, taking my hand in hers and giving me a sweet, trusting smile.

The rest of the night moves smoothly as we watch the movie, chitchatting and making comments to one another. Everything feels easy and free flowing with her, almost as though we have been friends for many years and we are merely catching up versus trying to get to know each other. I do not feel like she is a stranger. If she was a stranger, this would not feel as right as it does, as smooth and perfect as I always hoped it would but never dared expect.

Once the film ends, the rest of the attendants begin to stand up and shuffle around, folding up their blankets and packing up the various items they brought with them for the experience tonight. Molly and I have not moved an inch from where we ended the evening, me sitting upright against the oak tree with her wrapped up between my legs, my arms around her and my head resting against her shoulder.

Neither of us budge an inch once the credits began rolling. The hordes of people move past us and my grip doesn’t loosen. Molly’s heart starts beating faster the longer we sat wrapped up as the park cleared out until it is only us and an empty, white screen.

“Now what?” she whispers, her voice hoarse and husky. It is sexy as hell.

“Whatever you want.”

She is quiet, contemplating. I wait patiently, closing my eyes as I breathe her in, holding onto all the senses of the moment and storing every second of this amazing experience. “Are we close to the beach?”

“Mm-hmm,” I breathe, not moving.

“Can we go there?” she asks, turning her face toward me, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

I lift my face up and notice that her lips are only millimeters from mine, but I resist partaking this second. It is just not quite the right moment yet and I know that this is going to be a big first kiss. As bad as I want it, I have to wait for it. It could prove to be a smarter move to wait.

Then again, I’ve been accused of missing my moment before.

Before I give it much more thought, Molly turns her face forward and pulls away from me, leaving my arms empty and cold, something that is entirely too unpleasant a feeling after having her there for so long. She stands up, brushing her hair with her fingers, adjusting her sweater and bending down to start packing things up.

“Hold on, let me,” I say, and I stand to take care of everything. Once it is all packed up she takes the basket again and we start heading toward the coast. It is only a few blocks in the other direction so we stop off at my car to deposit the picnic items. The second our hands are empty, I take Molly’s in mine and pull her close. She takes my hand and leans into me, resting her head against me as we walk and I feel a sense of contentment that I really want to get used to.

We talk and share the more we walk, the conversation flowing so easily I have to keep reminding myself that this was only our first date. She tells me all about her business and all the ideas she has to expand, things she hasn’t even talked to Sam about yet.

“I’ve been thinking of starting up something like a day spa or a yoga studio,” Molly tells me as we finally round a corner and I point out the beach up ahead. “I have enough brand recognition in that area of Michigan that it would be an easy and simple step to take, but I’m a little nervous to put too much into that idea.”

“Why is that?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well not all of us can be beautiful on-camera and earn a full years’ salary at the same time.”

“Beautiful, huh?” I repeat with a broad grin. “You think I get paid to be beautiful? I think you’re mistaken about who you’re talking to.”

“Come on,” she jabs, giving me a little nudge with her elbow. “You know you’re gorgeous.”

“You are gorgeous,” I stop, turning her around to face me as I take her in. The humble look that crosses her stunning face makes my heart skip a beat. “And I don’t just mean physically… Everything. Your soul is just… I’ve never felt this way. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

She is speechless and her face flushes red. She looks away, embarrassed and I want to reach out and stop her from feeling that way because there is no need for her to feel like that with me. I hesitate just long enough for her to pull away from me and I instantly regret not being braver. She keeps heading straight toward the beach and I stay a step behind her for a bit, trying to regain my composure and decide what it is I want. I just wish I knew what she wanted so I could either do it or just let it go.

I want to kiss this woman so bad that my lips ache. Like physically, they ache.

I catch up to her a bit closer and take her hand again. She lets me. It is becoming so easy to do this. I enjoy every second of this silence and as we get closer I can tell more and more that there is something on her mind, something she is on the verge of sharing but not quite.

We arrive at the beach and she breaks apart from me, stepping down to the soft sand of the shore. For a second, she stands there and I watch her close her eyes and enjoy the sea breeze on her face. It is not her first time visiting the Pacific but something about her expression tells me that this is an important trip for her.

I step down to the shore, trying to be quiet so as not to intrude on her private moment. She breaks her gaze from the ocean and switches her gaze to me, a soft, tender look that sets my heart on fire, my skin prickling with the anticipation of something great happening.

The waves crash gently next to us and the wind picks up, the free pieces of Molly’s hair flowing against her cheek and framing the smooth curve of her face. Never more had a woman so embodied an enchanting goddess than did Molly Walker in this very moment and I would worship her for all of my years.

“Well… I have a past,” she says, tentative. She stares at me expectantly and I am thrown off a bit by what she’s said.

I shrug. “Yes. Everyone has a past, this is nothing new.”

“My past still… it still affects the way I approach new relationships.” She wrings her hands and I know that this is hard for her to tell me. “It makes me a little bit hesitant… I’ve just gone through a lot.”

“I’ve had plenty of long-term relationships go awry,” I tell her, taking a step closer. I need to convey to her that it is unnecessary for her to feel uneasy about this. “Plenty of things end and plenty of people hurt you in different ways… Every girlfriend I’ve had that I’ve lost has shaped the way I approach new relationships.”

“I was married, though,” she blurts out and I see the fear in her eyes. This is what she’s been so afraid to tell me and I can tell that she has told men this in the past and met with less than ideal responses.

This makes me scoff aloud and for a second she frowns at me, confused. “So, you were married? It’s not like that’s any different than being in any other long term relationship. A promise to love someone forever is a promise.” Her face is expressionless. “I may not have been married but when I made a promise to someone that I would stay with them forever, I always meant it. I keep my promises.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she concedes, her voice still low. “But it’s more about the reasons why, the things that happened that brought me there and what has happened since, more so than anything else.”

We are both quiet for a moment. “Listen, Molly,” I say, lowering my voice and squeezing her hand, now covered in both of mine. “I know that all of this has been hard for you to tell me about because of your past, but I can assure you that I am okay with you having a past. I have one, too, and mine has been a hell of a lot more public than yours,” I say, trying not to sound too bitter about this last part. It is the one thing that keeps me from delving in at times but at heart I am a romantic and have a hard time denying myself. It is almost always an entirely selfish act, though, because by the time the media has had it with my relationship, I am left with an angry partner that doesn’t understand why we can’t just be left alone. It may be an antiquated thought, but I am supposed to protect the woman I love, make her feel like she is safe inside the walls of our home. I have been unable to provide this for some time.

I want to do it right, just one time.

“The reason I asked you out with me is because the second I saw you there was just something… something about you that I had to figure out.” I am gazing at her now and she is staring back up at me, her eyes wide and exploring, digging for my secrets. She will figure all of them out in time, I know it.

“And uh…” she peers down at her feet, our joined hands, and takes a small step closer, “what have you figured out?”

Molly’s body comes closer, so close that I can sense her blood, pulsing through her heated body, just like it is for me. I take a deep breath and gulp past the lump in my throat, trying to maintain my composure this close. I let both of my hands go from hers, winding my left arm around her waist and my left hand goes to her face, pushing the forgotten red tendrils back past her ear. I see the chill spread at my light touch and I smile, my breath close to her face.

“You speak to me, the way a Grecian muse speaks to her artist,” I breathe to her. “Everything about you is intoxicating and inspires me to be everything I can be and more just to keep up with everything you breathe life into. You are a gift to me.”

Her eyes mist over, betraying the truth in her heart and she breathes “Ryan,” in a voice choked with the emotion of a woman never truly appreciated and it is then that I do not resist anymore. I tighten my left arm around her and bring her in as close as we can get and with her pressed against me, heart to heart, our beating in sync, my right hand reaches behind her head and I bring my lips down to meet hers, soft at first, touching only a little bit to make sure it was okay. The moment she parts her lips, I dive in without a second thought.

Every second of these soft, sweet lips pressed against mine I know is exactly where I am supposed to be. Everything about this trip, all of my trepidation and curiosity, wondering if I was ever going to mend a lonely, broken heart with something that could be the last heartbreak I ever experience. I never thought it would happen for me, and if it did, I was going to be a much older, lonelier man before I knew what it felt like to truly know that forever feeling.

Molly’s mere presence is enough to convince me that these feelings can exist for me again. She is the bright sparkle of new life that I need in my tired existence. 

I move my hand down from her neck and brush my fingers down the soft nape, down the shoulder, and travel down her arm until I find her hip, winding my arm around her and pulling her even closer. I open my mouth a little wider, inviting her in, enjoying every second of being close with her.

She presses herself against me, her hands moving from my hips up my chest, against my pounding heart, and then up around my shoulders. She hooks her hands there, clinging to me as though she can sense everything I am thinking, like she understands I need her to need me. I want to give someone the rest of my heart.

We stay in this deep, intimate embrace for another minute or so before I regain my composure. If I do not step back from her, I will take her right here on the beach and that is not a first date I want to have with Molly.

“That… that was…” she breathes when we break apart, our arms still entwined.

“Something,” I say, and I pull her against my chest and wrap my arms around her and tuck my head against hers. We hug like this for a long time, neither of us wanting to break away.

“What time is it?” she asks suddenly, jumping back from me.

“Oh,” I fish my phone out of my pocket and check, “it is almost midnight, actually.” I peer up at her and she is looking away from me, but appears concerned. “Is it too late? Should I get you back to your hotel?”

“No!” she says, waving me off. She pulls her phone out, “Let me just text Sam so she knows I’m alive.” I smile at her and as soon as she finishes, she tosses her phone into her discarded shoes and turns to me, a wide, almost maniacal grin on her face. “In three minutes, it will be Christmas Eve.”

I frown at her. “Yes, and?”

She takes a deep breath. “It is not every day a small town girl from Michigan gets a chance to experience whatever this is with someone like you… and I want it to be as memorable as possible. Christmas is my favorite holiday, I am in one of my favorite places on earth and I can say… I can probably say you are one of my favorite people currently. I mean… I’m here, still, right?”

“I love it.” I tell her, knowing exactly what she is proposing before she can say it. She smiles widely, because she does get it. There is something special happening that we can’t deny, and it’s almost as though we don’t need the words. I kick off my shoes, stuff my phone and keys into my pocket and throw my jacket on top of everything else. I turn to Molly, who is grinning in such a way that she is entrancing. I get to her in two large strides and kiss her deeply. She is ready for me and already smiling, wrapping her hands in my hair and tugging gently as everything about this intensity is conveyed between our interlocked lips.

Molly pulls away from me and leaves my arms, running ahead of me and straight into the ocean. I waste no time making it to her. I have at least six inches in height on her so I can catch up to her quickly, which I do as soon as we hit the water, where we both slow and our momentum rocks us forward and into the water. We both emerge, completely soaked, shivering, and laughing.

“I d-d-didn’t know it w-w-was this c-cold…” she says, rubbing her arms.

“It’s December,” I say to her, wrapping her up against me, but I am not much help as I am just as wet and cold. We start trudging forward and come out of the water.  
“T-too bad you l-left that blanket,” she says, a smile on her face even though she is shivering.

“If you take off your shirt you can wear my jacket,” I offer.

She stops and peers at me skeptically. “If you w-wanted to get me shirtless, you c-could have just asked,” she kids. I turn and look at her, raising my eyebrows at her.  
“It’s not nice to tease,” I tell her, giving her a kiss on the cheek and then continue walking.

“Who’s teasing?” she whispers against me and I shake my head as we chuckle together.

When we get to our stuff, I turn around and allow her a second to remove her wet shirt so she can get into my jacket. “I’m done,” she tells me and I turn back, smiling at what appears to be a much more comfortable young woman. “Thank you so much. I swear I didn’t have this planned ahead of time or I would have insisted we bring the blanket.”

“Sure you didn’t have it planned,” I tease, “I think it was all a ruse to wear my jacket.”

“Oh yeah,” she retorts, sarcasm laced in her words, “because dragging you to the beach, kissing you and then talking you into something ridiculous was the easiest way to wear your jacket.” Molly’s eyes are narrowed at me. “All I would have had to say is, ‘I’m chilly’ and you would have handed it over.’”

“Wh-” I start, but I stop because I know she’s right. My face betrays me and we both start laughing. “Damn,” I say.

“Yeah.”

We walk in silence for a bit. I have not hugged her close again, since she is in a warm, dry jacket and I am still in my soaking wet shirt. For a second, it feels as though the spell that was cast over us at the beach has left, but Molly takes my hand and stops me, right there on the street. We are still about a block from my car.

“Everything all right?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, a glittering smile hidden beneath her sweet, rosy lips. “I wanted to say thank you for tonight and let you know that I think you are beautiful, too,” I scoff a tiny bit, just enough for her to notice and quickly reply. “No, seriously. You’ve been nothing but forthcoming with your feelings and intentions the entire night and I haven’t been able to make mine very clear,” she takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “I have had a lot of bad experiences. I have been in and out of love what feels like one too many times, but I’ve never really met anyone quite like you. You challenge me, you complement me, and at the same time, you understand me. It’s an interesting and complex thing we have here.”

“Agreed.” I smile.

“I’m very interested in exploring what it is,” she whispers.

I take a deep breath, my heart hammering against the walls of my chest. I want nothing more than to figure this out and maybe this time, I’ll get it right. “So am I.”

She reaches her hand up to my cheek, and her gentle touch compels my lips to hers, which are craving the taste of her desperately. I enjoy the warmth of her kiss and the strength she gives me as we stand here. It is agony to separate from her but we do part eventually, standing inches apart on the street before we start to walk. I am about to turn but Molly stays still.

“Are you coming?”

“I just wanted to take one more minute to enjoy being here with you before the night ends.”

I take her in my arms fully, no longer caring who is wet and who isn’t and I kiss the top of her head and whisper to her, “I can do that.”


	4. Four - Hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING:  
> Strong Language.

Four - Hers

Present day

The first thing I did after I got in the car was called Sam. She said the same thing I did when I got off the phone with the doctor.

“What the fuck?”

“Right!”

“What the fuck?”

“I know!”

“What the fuck!”

“I KNOW!” I yelled emphatically, so angry that I punched my steering wheel. “What the HELL, Sam? How did this happen?”

“Oh come on, Molly, I know you don’t remember much about that night but you have to figure it probably happened last Halloween in Vegas,” she reminds me.

My best friend is completely right. I had totally forgotten about the ill-fated drunken trip that was Halloween in Las Vegas. Tom and Sam had been invited to a party at the Venetian on the Strip in Vegas. Since I wasn’t important enough to warrant an invite, our friend Chris invited me as his plus one and we ended up having a great time.  


That was, until my party was crashed by the face of Ryan Gosling, a man I had hoped to never have to see again. Things went from bad to worse at the party as we fought. At some point, we left the Venetian and made our way down the Strip. After that, I have no recollection of most of the night. Snippets and little bits of memories that come back but nothing discernible. Ryan’s face could have been Chris’s for all I know because I was unwilling to look too closely at it.

“You two were ridiculous that night,” she comments with an evil cackle.

“What the hell does that mean? Were we fighting really badly or something?”

“God, I can’t believe you don’t remember,” she says, still chuckling. “You were so hammered, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Just tell me what happened, I’m almost to the hospital. I need to know what I’m dealing with before I get there,” I beg her. Seeing Ryan is going to be hard enough without at least knowing what I’m getting myself into.

“Well, at first you two were just arguing and it was almost getting out of hand,” she tells me. “You two were already pretty much on your way to drunk and had ordered another when Tom and Chris came over and separated you.”

I grimace. “It wasn’t violent was it?”

“Oh, no,” she says with a scoff. “No, just loud, you know how loud you are when you’re drunk.”

“True,” I concede and let her continue.

“So we all ended up leaving and Tom was about to get us a car to take us to the Hard Rock hotel when you and Ryan broke off and started arguing again, so we decided it was better to just take Ryan back to his hotel and just make sure you were separate.”

“Well, obviously that didn’t happen.”

“No, not even a little. We didn’t even get down the road and Ryan said he refused to go back to his hotel because he wanted to make sure you knew that he wasn’t going to just ‘bail’ again and you told him if he wanted to stay you didn’t care but you weren’t going to pay him any attention. He said ‘Fine, I’ll take it.’ And you were both silent enough that we didn’t feel like we needed to make that trip so we went to Hard Rock.”

In the background, I hear a very small voice crying. Sam and Tom had just had their second daughter, Izzie, three weeks ago. Their oldest daughter, Emma, was seven, and extremely excited about being a big sister and was eager to help. Tom, as he didn’t get a chance to be around for Emma’s baby years, had decided to take a few months off of work to help out and be there.

Having been the only one around when Emma was born and the only other pair of hands to relieve Sam, I knew exactly how big a job it was and it was incredible that Tom was taking it so seriously. Sam looked much better rested this time around and was delighted to have her whole family together for such a long time. She was used to Tom’s travelling and had gotten used to him being around a lot during the pregnancy.

“Hold on a second, Mol,” she says. “What’s up, hon?”

“The nappies! Where are they?”

“Nappies? What the… oh you mean the cloth diapers?”

“Right now I don’t care what they’re called, I just need a bloody rag!”

“Give me a sec, babe,” she says and I hear her rushing through the house. “Anyway, Mol, sorry,” she says. I tell her no problem and she continues. “Anyway, by the time you guys were at the Hard Rock you were starting to get to that emotional drunk phase and you made the mistake of getting another drink.”

“You guys just let me drink like that?” I ask, mortified.

“Babe, you’re an adult and I am definitely not your mother,” she laughs, “I thought the alcohol was actually helping you guys get past all that other bullshit so that you could actually be honest about how you felt.” I hear rustling and then an exchange, a couple of baby coos that make my heart swell, and a smooching sound.

“What are you talking about?” I ask when she tells me the coast is clear. “What Ryan did to me was not bullshit. I had every right to be angry and demand an explanation. And I was honest about my feelings. Angry is how I felt. Angry, furious and betrayed.”

“Because you love him.”

My jaw drops. Blurted out it sounds so angry and tense, but also full of the possibilities of what I have forgotten was there. I immediately deny it. “Maybe at one point I may have entertained that I… felt something… a bit… But that was then and he betrayed my trust.”

“Whatever you say. All I know is that you never demanded an explanation. In fact, you pretty much refused to speak to him most of the night and only until your second or third drink did you actually start saying anything, and you were just fighting back,” I hear her rustle around under the covers. I glance at the clock on the dash. It is nearly ten at night. I am just lucky that my friends are on a newborn schedule and available to talk. “You guys were fine by the time we were at the Hard Rock and even started dancing for a while. It wasn’t much longer after that Tom and I wanted to go grab something to eat and then call it a night so we tried talking you guys into wrapping it up, too, but you just weren’t having it. Ryan insisted he could take care of you and that he would make sure you got back okay, and after that you guys left.”

“Were we still fighting?” I ask, amazed that I cannot remember a single thing. I usually don’t drink to the point of completely forgetting what happened the night before. I did that once in college and it was too damned scary to try again. Apparently Vegas had other ideas.

“Not even close. Actually you had your arms around each other. I mean, maybe you guys were just trying to keep one another upright, you were pretty fucked up.”

I pull into the parking lot of the hospital and quickly find a spot. Late at night even the emergency department is pretty desolate. A comforting realization, I suppose. Once I shut my car down I answer Sam. “I can’t believe I don’t remember anything. Well what happened when I got back that night?”

She giggles again, this time it is so telling that I know what she is going to say before she says it. “You never made it back, babe,” and she cackles again. “You stumbled into your room probably around eleven the next morning. Tom and I were heading back up from brunch when we saw you get back.”

“God,” I moan, setting my head on the steering wheel. “If we had sex, I don’t even remember, Sam! Is this terrible?”

I hear her yawn deeply before she answers, “Sure, you have no idea how he was in bed.” She chuckles, “And you were so excited to find out.”

I get out of the car, gathering my purse and locking it behind me. “You’re not funny.”

“Well, look at this way, at least you didn’t walk away knocked up and single,” she laughs.

“Wasn’t so terrible for you.”

“Not with you there,” she says, her voice starting to slow down. “But those years would have been nice with him.”

“Go to sleep, hon, I’m sorry I kept you up.”

“Mm,” she answers, “it’s okay. You have an obligation to call when you find out you’ve been secretly married to a man you love-hate.”

“Screw you,” I say. “Go to bed.”

“Love you, too.”

“Goodnight,” I laugh, and hang up. I look up to the entrance of the hospital and take a deep breath. I have to get this over with one way or another.

As I take my first few hesitant steps forward, I can’t help but hear Sam’s words in my head again, ‘Those years would have been nice with him.’ I had no doubt that Sam appreciated the support and help I gave her when she needed me and I would have done it all over again in an instant for her, but I’m sure having the father of your child, the love of your life, by your side would have been much more meaningful.

Sam was a lot of things and even though she had been through a lot, she was pretty perceptive about relationships. Maybe she had a point. It had been almost a year since I’d seen Ryan at all and even though the particulars of our parting are fuzzy I do remember that the overall feeling was that we had resolved something. It felt better than my thoughts of him had been for a long time and the sense of peace was so relieving that I didn’t give it much more thought.

Was this last year without him a mistake? Was it something we should have tried to do together, had we remembered what happened between us? Ryan had definitely been equally as drunk, which means he probably doesn’t have much of recollection, either, which probably explains why he had the paperwork with him. Surely he was on his way to let her know what was going on and had gotten into this accident on the way.

My step falters and my blood runs ice cold. My stomach turns and then instantly feels heavy, everything weighing on me at once. If he was hurt on his way to see me, I am responsible for whatever has happened to him.

Fear floods through me. I don’t know what is scarier, the notion that I am married to someone I never thought I’d see again and now I have that headache to grapple with, or that I might lose Ryan, right here and now when I didn’t even have the chance to say one more word to him.

I run headfirst into the information desk and rethink what I am about to ask. Instead, I find someone working security and explain my situation, that I am married to someone famous at the hospital and I do not want to alert too many people to his admittance. He takes me to a door off the waiting room, swiping a badge to open it up. We walk through a couple of hallways before we approach a set of elevators that are used for doctors to transport patients. We step on and head up to the eighth floor and I follow him, more and more anxious with every step. He is walking rather briskly so I have little to no time to contemplate any of this.

Before I know it, we round a corner and find a room at the end of the hall that has the door closed and one other security officer standing outside. When we approach, he takes a step forward, his eyes on me and then on the officer escorting me. “This the wife?” he asks gruffly.

“Molly Walker,” he hands over my driver’s license, something I had completely forgotten about giving him, waits a second, and turns around to leave. When I thank his retreating back he simply waves his hand without turning his head. When I turn back to the new security guard he has already opened up the door to the room where Ryan is and has my license stretched out for me to take.

The door clicks shut behind me and I see him in the bed, his eyes closed, a butterfly bandage stretched across the bridge of his nose, an IV in his right arm, and his left leg casted and propped up onto several pillows. Tears spring to my eyes. This is not the charming asshole I remember, the man that had the uncanny ability to read my mind and understood me better than anyone I’d ever known.

Since we are alone and I am not sure how long that will last, I approach the bed quietly, taking in the full sight of him. The closer I get the worse it looks. The whole left side of his face is bruised and cut up, his nose clearly broken. His left arm is cut up along the upper arm but otherwise seems intact but his leg is what must have taken the force of his fall. Ryan’s leg is cast up past the knee.

The tears start to tickle my nose and I sniffle a little, wiping them away. Unfortunately this has proven to be just the exact noise that will bring Ryan out of his sleep because his eyes slowly open, staring at me for a second or two before he full wakes. “Molly?” he croaks.

“Hi, Ryan,” I say, unsure how I should act. We haven’t been romantic in such a long time that it seems inappropriate to give him a hug or do anything affectionate, even though it seems like I should. I mean, after all, I am his wife.

“Did the hospital call you?” he asks as closes his eyes and shifts in the bed painfully.

“Are you all right? Do you want me to get the nurse?” I ask, taking a step back.

“No, I’m just sore as hell,” he responds. “I got hit by a car.”

“I, uh…I heard,” I tell him, trying to disguise the emotion in my voice. He peers up at me and I know he heard it. Instead, I look away and sigh, “They also went ahead and told me that we’re apparently married.”

Ryan sighs heavily, shutting his eyes for a moment before he turns to me and begins, “Listen, Molly, about that –”

Just then, the door opens and we are interrupted but what appears to be a team of doctors. They introduce themselves but other than the attending who is holding Ryan’s medical chart and appears to be the one about to speak to me, I cannot remember who or what they are.

“You must be Mrs. Gosling?” she asks, a thin smile on her lips as she extends a hand in greeting.

“Ms. Walker,” I correct her, taking her hand.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t assume,” she says apologetically. I relax just a bit and cross my arms in front my chest. “I’m Dr. Minh, and I’m the one that was here when Mr. Gosling-”

“Ryan!” he croaks out on the bed behind me. I turn to peer at him and see that he is smiling devilishly at Dr. Minh, who I turn to see is buying all of it. She is grinning like an idiot and trying hard to hide it but not quite succeeding.

“Yes, sorry, when Ryan came in today he was pretty banged up,” she explains.

“Yes, I see that,” I tell her. “So what are the extent of the injuries?”

“It looks a lot worse than it is,” she explains, walking over to him with her gaggle of grinning goofballs trailing behind her. She pulls out her stethoscope and begins to do a quick exam of Ryan while she talks. “Ryan did come in with a minor concussion but was not unconscious. He had only first degree abrasions on his face.”

“It’s a good thing, since this is the money maker, right, Molly?” Ryan cracks, grinning. I roll my eyes but Dr. Minh smiles and continues.

“Now he does have the second degree on the upper arm and on his hip, but luckily that’s all easily taken care of. If, at some point you find that there is a little scarring due to the road rash you can always come back in and we can consult about corrective surgery for it,” she informs us, looking back and forth between the two of us to give us the information. It occurs to me that this isn’t a colossal joke to anyone else. She believes we are a married couple that actually would share this information and discuss it at a later date.

“On my hip? I think I can live with that, it’s not like anyone sees it,” he mumbles, but Dr. Minh catches it and only frowns a little. I sigh heavily.

“So what about his leg?”

“Yes, because of how Ryan landed when he was thrown from the bike, he sprained his ankle and fractured his tibia. Luckily, once we got the x-rays of his leg back we were able to determine that Ryan won’t need surgery to correct it.”

“Well that’s a relief,” I say quietly, but out of the corner of my eye I notice Ryan smile. “So what’s next, then?”

“The MRI we took shows us that there’s nothing going on internally and luckily we know that there’s no severe brain injury, but he did come in with a concussion so we want to keep him overnight to watch him and make absolutely sure. We take motorcycle accidents very seriously.” She finishes examining Ryan and stands up, coming back around the bed toward me. “We’ve already set the leg and cast it, and we’ll discuss outpatient rehabilitation tomorrow when he’s discharged so you know what’s coming afterward.”

“Wait, outpatient rehab?” I interrupt her. “You mean physical therapy?”

“Yes, an injury like this will require maybe one or two sessions of physical therapy, just to make sure those muscles and bones are strong enough to support you after being off of them for six weeks.”

“Six weeks?” I try not to sound completely flabbergasted, after all this woman seems to think I love and care for this man every day of my life.

“At least,” she tells me. “After six weeks we’ll take a look at it, see how it’s healing, and at that time we may look at integrating those sessions of physical therapy so that we can get him walking in a more comfortable boot.”

“You know, ladies, I am still in the room,” Ryan pipes up then and we both turn and look at him. Dr. Minh smiles but I roll my eyes again, my face unchanging.

“If you have any other questions please feel free to have me paged,” she tells us, “and it was nice to meet you both.”

“Thank you,” I mutter and Ryan waves at her, grinning and telling her how lovely it was to meet her. I cannot roll my eyes any harder as I turn back to face him. The silence stretches for a few seconds, feeling longer and longer with each passing one. Finally, the dust seems to settle from what the doctor told us and we are both acutely aware of the passing silence.

“Okay, if you’re not going to say anything I will,” Ryan finally says, his injured body unable to give full volume to his voice. His straining is painful to hear and I cannot imagine how it feels.

“Ryan, you need to rest,” I tell him, still unable to look at him. “I don’t think we need to discuss all of this.”

“Let me explain,” he says. “I was on my way to tell you what was going on when I got into the accident. I squeeze my eyes shut and pull my arms tightly around myself. So it was my fault he got into this accident. “I swear I just found out about it myself.”

“How’d you find out?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. I am anxious to get rid of this pit in my stomach, the guilt I can’t help but feel so heavily.

“Well I’ve been looking into getting dual citizenship since America is finally open to allowing it,” he tells me, and I remember how on our first date back in California he lamented that the system was not moving fast enough and how he was anxious to be an American citizen as well as a Canadian citizen. Apparently the process was slow moving and the government wasn’t always so keen on handing out citizenship.

“Good, I’m happy for you,” I tell him.

“Thanks,” he says with the shadow of a genuine smile crossing his face. “So I had my lawyer do a background check on me just to make sure nothing surprising would come up, and what do you know? Something surprising came up.” He chuckles weakly again and points to a pile of paperwork on the table next to what I presume is a bag of cut apart clothing. “Over there.”

I walk around the bed swiftly and scoop up the paperwork. The first few papers I see in the pile are the legal documents for Ryan’s background check, things I cannot discern nor care to, but finally I arrive at the marriage license. I see that it has been signed by both of us and a couple of witnesses whose names I do not recognize at all. The date is also stamped for October 31, 2018, the night we were sloshed in Las Vegas.

I groan heavily and rub my face over and over, hoping to make it all go away somehow. Apparently wandering into a chapel, drunk as hell does not disqualify you from entering into a legal binding contract with someone.

“I know,” he says. “But we’re still within the year statute to annul the marriage instead of going through the rigmarole of a divorce.”

“Really?” I ask, hopeful. Even if Ryan did mean something to me once, I know that he is not someone I can completely trust anymore. Being married to him is not something I can probably do, since I know how bad it hurts when he breaks a promise.

“Yeah, that’s what I was coming by to talk to you about, but you know… Shit happens.” He moans again. “I think I need more drugs, I’m starting to feel every sore muscle in my side.”

“You don’t have a pump or something?” I ask, glancing around.

“Nah, I can take pills by mouth,” he says. “I’d prefer to not have that many holes in me.”

“I know,” I whisper harshly. So much about what we went through is coming back the longer I stay here with him. It feels like I’ve been sliced, knowing that Ryan was coming back just to end his marriage to me, especially after everything that happened. It hurts more than I care to admit and it is bringing my attitude toward Ryan back in full swing.

“What is it?” he asks, an edge to his voice. I know he is in pain but I cannot help the anger that is starting to bubble in my chest. It is not worth it to let the anger go. No explanation he has for me could possibly be worth it.

“I’m just annoyed,” I tell him. “It seems like no matter what we do, we keep running into each other and it’s just getting irritating.”

“Wow, thanks for that.”

“Well, what the hell do you expect?” I spit, my words like acid. “You know very well that we can’t be in the same room together for more than a few minutes now without biting each other’s heads off.”

“Molly, you’re the only one that ever bites a head off. I merely react to you,” he explains, his voice so contemptuous that I want to smack him, despite his many injuries. “I know you think you’re just being careful about your feelings but you just end up sounding like a bitter ex.”

“That’s what I am, isn’t it?”

After this statement, there’s silence for a while. I fume angrily, trying not to let my emotions completely control me in the middle of such a public place with such a public person.

“Molly, I know you’re angry about things that have happened between us, but that is the past and we are here in the present with our present situation,” he explains rationally. I hate that he is being rational because I feel anything but. “There’s only one way we can handle it. We have to get this marriage annulled and we’re going to have to do it within the next six weeks or things will get a lot more complicated.”

“I’m confused, didn’t we uh…” I look down, uncomfortable because I am so embarrassed that I can’t remember, “consummate the marriage?”

Ryan says nothing for a few seconds and then shakes his head. “No, Molly. I may not remember much about that night, but I have to say that’s one of the things I feel like I would remember.”

I frown and look at him, skeptical. “Sam says I didn’t get back to my hotel room until eleven the next morning. Seems like something may have happened, otherwise why would I have spent the night with you?”

“Maybe because we were drunk and together. I mean, we had just gotten married, I suppose it made sense that we spent the night in the same room.”

“Then how do you know we didn’t have sex?” I blurted out.

“Because we both woke up fully clothed, me in the hot tub and you in the bed. I highly doubt we would have ended up in those positions if we had just finished having sex being as drunk as we were. Seems like we just would have collapsed where we were.”

This explanation makes me feel infinitely better and much less trashy. Sure, in a legal sense I would have been making love to my husband but I was drunk and unaware of anything I was doing, which makes all of it so much worse. The embarrassment starts to fade as I sit there and process the information, waiting for Ryan to say anything else.

“Does that at least make you feel better?”

I want to tell him no, that none of it makes me feel better. He still came all this way to get me out of his life, something I am just unable to reconcile myself with. I am angry at Ryan all over again, my skin heating up at the mere thought.

“I’ll take that as a no.” He sighs heavily and doesn’t allow me time to speak. “Listen, I promise as soon as I am feeling up to it, I will schedule us a sit down with my lawyer and a magistrate and we can get this whole business solved and I’ll get out of your life forever, okay?”

I sit in brooding silence for another few minutes, causing Ryan to get fed up with my not answering him but I finally speak up.

“How are you traveling home and then back here in the next six weeks if you can’t even walk?”

“I’ll figure it all out.”

“You’ll have physical therapy, though.”

“I’ll…” he falters. “I guess I’ll have to figure something out.” I know what he is thinking. Ryan lost his mom in recent years and the weight of it was still heavy in his chest. He had one sister but she had a family of her own and she still lived in Canada. Dropping everything to move to California for two months is kind of impossible.

Ryan was in this accident because he was on his way to see me. We only have six weeks to get him healed and this whole marriage business settled.

There really is only one option.

I stand up and stare at him, then sigh heavily. “At least tell me you’re not messy.”


	5. Five - His

Five – His

Valentine’s Day, 1.5 years ago

Sixty-three days, four hours, and thirty-two minutes had passed since the last time I was able to hold Molly in my arms. Since our first date had gone so well the Christmas before, Molly and I had made the decision to get to know one another and try to figure out what could come of what we seemed to share between the two of us. It was definitely something special.

It had been hard to say goodbye to Molly when the time came. She, Sam and Tom and their daughter Emma were heading for the airport the day after Christmas in the afternoon. I’d managed to spend Christmas evening with her and made sure to get to her hotel early to see her off the next day. Luckily I had a pretty flexible schedule and had already made previous arrangements to head to Detroit the following February to scout locations for several of my upcoming projects. Because I was already giving myself two weeks to be in Detroit before heading to London to begin filming a new role, I knew I could manage in the extra time for Molly. I’d managed an extra week for my stay and I’d left it up to Molly how she wanted the time distributed.

She ultimately decided that she wanted to have me spend Valentine’s Day there with her even though it would probably be a busy day for her. It seems like something that is important to her and I don’t want to deny her of anything since my time is thin lately.

I pull out my phone to text Molly and let her know that I am about to pull up outside. I took a taxi from the airport because I am planning to stay the week at Molly’s and getting my rental doesn’t seem necessary. We discussed whether we wanted to take the step of spending the night together when we really didn’t know one another yet. When we talked about the possibility of me getting a room and a rental to be there for the week it seemed silly, overall. I am well paid but pragmatic.

And admittedly more than anxious to spend every second with Molly, whether we were naked or not.

The taxi stops outside the address I gave and it occurs to me that I haven’t actually been here yet. Molly has shown me pictures, given me a grand tour (which included outside shots of the house where she walked her laptop around the perimeter of her yard), and described the place and how she wants to change it up and down, so when I see it in person it is familiar and yet new all at once.

I assist the driver in collecting my things, pay him, and head up to the front door, tentative and unsure if Molly is even home. She parks in her garage so I know I won’t find her car there for a clue. However, as I begin to ascend her front steps to knock, her front door opens and she is standing in front of me, as beautiful and picturesque as I remember, if not more. Something about her in this domesticate setting bathers her in a different kind of beauty.

All the emotions I remember flood through and a twinge of fear at the sight of this life, how comfortable and easy it looks to slip right into. I try not to give any credence to it because I am being an idiot. This woman is absolutely perfect and there’s no reason I shouldn’t want everything.

The door opens in what feels like slow motion and a wide, sparkling beam spreads across her soft, sweet features and before I can take her in for a second, she throws her arms around me and I am awash in everything that is good and right in the world. I hold her so tight that I am sure she’s going to tell me she can’t breathe but I hear nothing. She is clinging as tightly to me as I am to her.

We break apart and I gaze down at her, my eyes drinking her in thirstily. It is the moment I’ve been eagerly awaiting for over two months and to be frank, my overwhelming reaction to her is far more intense than I anticipated. It’s thrown me for a real loop.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers and smiles, her lips as red and luscious as I remember so vividly. I know she is waiting for me to lean into her and I happily oblige, remembering the sweet taste of her against me. What I am shocked to learn, as I continue to deepen my greeting, is how remarkable it feels just to be back, as though I haven’t been truly home since I left her embrace.

The icy sting hits me again and I pull back from her as though I’ve been shocked. She smiles at me, slightly bemused but otherwise unaffected by my reaction. Her green eyes glitter against the stark white winter landscape, making even my slight misgivings seem inconsequential. All that matters is that I am here with Molly.

“You have no idea how much I missed you,” I tell her as I come back to myself and bend down to wrap her in my arms, lift her up, and kiss her again. This time, I kiss her like I mean it. I throw away all the thoughts and worries I am so desperate to forget and focus on the moment. This is what my heart wants and I am going to just go for it.

Molly doesn’t seem to complain. She smiles against my lips and wraps her arms around my neck, pressing herself against me in a way that makes me react instantly. I am not even sorry that it’s happening, because if this is going to be the week, it’s time to stop being shy.

“Wow,” she breathes against me, still smiling, “excited to see me or what?”

“Can you blame me?” I breathe, my voice raspy. This woman is going to be the death of me and right now I welcome it freely if only to know how it feels to be inside her.  
She chuckles against me, the deep timbre of it resonating in her chest, causing her breasts to heave forward against me. I am sure it is not intentional, but it is not making resisting her any easier. It is just when I think I am going to lose all of my willpower that Molly breaks the kiss and leans back, still tight in my embrace. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are sparkling like they are made of stars, and she speaks breathily, as though she has had the life breathed back into her. “I think it’s better if we wait…”

“I think you’re right,” I admit quickly, because taking her right here without preamble and at least a chance to think things through is not how I want to do it the first time. Not with her.

“I know I’m right,” she says, a little more control to her tone as she backs even further. I unwind my arms and my body temperature immediately starts dropping. I clear my throat and attempt to adjust myself so that I am not so obvious. With the shadow of a satisfied smirk on her face and at least pretending to give me some privacy, Molly turns and leads the way into the house. I take another couple of deep, steadying breaths, and then grab my things and enter.

With our distance and now the house to distract us, it is easier to leave what happened on the front step. “So this is it!” she says with a proud flourish, showing me around. “It’s not much, but I decorated and remodeled it myself, with or without the help of my siblings,” she adds at the end quietly. I grin at her, looking around. It is not as small as she seems to think it is but it is an appropriate size for one woman living on her own.

Molly continues her makeshift tour since I have seen much of the place already. She points things out that she told me about when we were talking, things she said would be easier to explain once I was there. We share laughs and it is all so comfortable that we fall into an easy flowing conversation, ones that I had forgotten about when we were apart. It was one of those things that we had to remember about being together. Trying to find things to talk about over web chat is different than feeling another person’s energy right next to you.

I follow her to the guest room where I insisted I stay and she shows me around while I set my things down.

“That’s about it,” she says, looking around. “I wish I had more time right now, but I really have to go down to the store. We opened today at nine and I’m already getting calls saying we’re jam packed. They need an extra hand.”

“How about two extra hands?” I offer. I have to admit, I’m excited. I was hoping for a chance to see Molly’s store while I’m here.

She stops dead. “Are you serious?” she asks me, her eyes wide. “You want to come down and work at the store with me?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, frowning. “I’m capable of working retail.” I am not indignant, just curious.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, “No,” she says with a laugh, “I meant… Ryan Gosling… working at my store… Don’t you think you might… attract too much attention?”  
“‘Too much attention’? Don’t you mean more business?” I say, crossing my arms as I stand in front of her. “Think about it… You’re already leaving and you’ll probably be gone most of the day, which means one of my days with you either has to be here, without you, which I do not accept,” a tender smile graces her lips, “or come work with you. You’ll not only have someone else to actually help, but you’ll have something that, well… frankly is going to attract a lot of female business. Probably not just today, either.”

“You,” she says, stepping forward and reaching out, taking my hands in hers, “are a genius.”

I smile widely at her, squeezing her hands and then winding my arms around her, pulling her in close. “I have my moments,” and with that, I lean in and give her one more kiss before we get ready to head to the store.

It doesn’t take Molly too much longer to get ready. She’s dressed down in an outfit I’ve seen her donning several times when we’ve chatted late at night; a pair of nice, form fitting jeans that I can appreciate even more now in person, a black t-shirt with her shop logo screen printed on the back, and a large, red cloth apron to protect her clothes when she allows customers to try the products. She approaches me after I’ve made myself presentable, throwing her long, curly hair into a messy bun at the back of her neck and standing with her hands on her hips. “Ready?” she asks me.

She’s so cute that I can’t help myself. I swoop in her and scoop her up close, giving her another kiss as an answer. I set her back down and she smiles, clearing her throat and lightly touching her hair. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

“That’s how I meant it,” I say, giving her hand a squeeze before we turn around and head out. The entire way to the store Molly offers me history about the neighborhood where she lives and tells me stories, showing me things she’s mentioned in previous conversations that I can finally now see in person. She is alive and crackling with energy, excited to finally have me here with her. She reaches over and takes my hand to express this last thought and I feel my heart skip a beat when I think about just how much I missed her these last two months. I have no idea how I’m going to do it again.

The idea of never saying goodbye again… I have to admit, it is equally terrifying. I wish it weren’t.

“Here we are,” she says, turning one more corner and breaking her story off in the middle. “I know I’ve shown it to you before but here it is in the flesh!” She throws her arms open toward it, showing it to me. I look at her, amused, and then back to the storefront. “Well, in the ‘brick and concrete’ might be a better description, but you get my meaning.”  
“I do,” I say, taking it in. It is much more impressive in person. According to Molly, her business began as a small internet venture when she started to enjoy making skin care products, specifically using all organic and raw ingredients. After a little pushing it started to pick up and before long she was able to sell in local stores. Once there became a demand for her product locally and online sales were taking off well, she had decided to invest in a storefront.

The name of her brand was what she named the store, so it seemed odd that ‘Good for You by Molly’ was the name of a store, but it made sense if you were a local and were aware of her products. According to Molly, however, things were going so well with the storefront that she was actually approached by a couple of investors and interested businesses that wanted to help her either open up an additional store or something else. There was even talk, at least through Molly’s lawyer, that there would soon be a possibility to go national.

Even with things speeding up for Molly, I know she is happy here, doing the work that started all of it. She comes into the store to make products all the time, even when things aren’t busy. It is the one part of it, she says, that makes the stress of running and expanding a business all worth it.

The money and the success is inconsequential for Molly. She wants to be creative. Wants to be productive. I love that about her.

My fear freezes me in place momentarily but luckily, Molly is busy getting out of the car and gathering up her thing and doesn’t see me hesitate. I hadn’t allowed myself to think the word, trying to avoid it so desperately but there it was and now it is the only thing I can think about.

I step out of the car, determined to not let it bother me for the rest of the night. It is right then that I see Molly about to start struggling with two or three heavy boxes of products and I am put to work that quickly. I ask her to pile up as many as she wants and with this task at hand and my mind occupied, I feel myself lighten. Now I can enjoy being with Molly and the added excitement this encounter will add to her store.

Molly gives me the fourth, and thankfully final box of stuff, closes the trunk, and locks the car. We head around back where the products need to go. She pops open the door without having to use her keys, since her employees are already aware she is heading in with stuff. She stands aside, holding the door for me and I deposit the boxes exactly where she tells me. The back room is mostly half-empty shelves stuffed with packaged body washes, lotions, and other products. I look around and notice that even as I’m glancing around, an employee rushes back, grabs a handful of items from the nearest shelf and runs back out.

“Looks like we’re low on everything,” she mutters to herself, staring at the shelves. She hasn’t even gotten fully into the store and is already in work mode. I stand there, unaware of what to do. I wait patiently for a few minutes while she studies the room in quiet contemplation. Finally she turns and looks at me and for a second seems surprised that I am there. I smile at her. “Oh, shit, you need a job.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says, and instead of saying anything else, she pulls me through the backroom and into a much larger room where she takes our coats, deposits them on a free hook on what looks like the break area of this room, and heads to what I assume is the work area. There is a large industrial sink against one wall and several feet of countertop on either side where a lot of huge, bulk body care ingredients were gathered. Behind me is a huge, greasy table that is clearly where most of the items are mixed together and set up to be cured. There is also an industrial range built into the table and I am even more impressed.

“So what is it you need me to do?” I ask, slightly nervous. I am almost sure she is about to task me with something that seems impossible, like soap making, but instead, she makes me step aside. She takes a large dishtowel that has seen better days and with a special cleaner, takes care of all the greasy spots on the area of table she needs clean.

“Okay,” she says, and she discards the other items across the table and doesn’t give it a second thought. “You are going to stand here,” she indicates, and instead of waiting for her to finish, I do what she says. “And you are going to wrap the products I finished last night.”

“Got it,” I say, “I think I can handle that.”

“I know you can,” she says with a chuckle and runs to the backroom, returning with eight bottles of lotion in her arms. She deposits them heavily next to me and turns again without saying anything, bringing out one more load of lotion before she hands me the packaging. I’ve bought so many of her products in the last couple of months for myself and for gifts that I pretty much know what the packages look like before she starts to tell me. “The label sticker goes on here,” she says, picking one off of the adhesive paper and showing me carefully, lays it expertly in the exact spot where a slight depression is made in the plastic. The label has a rectangular design that stretches across the bottle and in the center is a circle, denoting the name of the product ‘Good for You’ and in smaller print, ‘by Molly.’ Also part of this label is the Certified Organic sticker, something she told me she has to display on the front of all the products that are certified. “It’s really easy to figure out,” she says with a shrug, and then reaches for one more sticker, a small transparent square that lists the ingredients used in the product for allergy reasons. She slaps this one on the back, nearly perpendicular to the other one, tightens the cap, sets it down, and turns to me. “Less packaging. Makes it pretty easy.”

“This is all you want me to do?”

“I have four full boxes of fourteen different products,” she tells me with a smirk. “You’ll be busy for a few minutes.” With this, she gives me a wink and I set to my task as she continues to deposit the items and coordinating labels next to me. Right before she goes to sweep up the finished bunch, we both hear a gasp and our attention is diverted immediately. I lay eyes on a small, frightened looking blonde woman who is staring at me, her eyes wide.

“You’re not…”

“Hi,” I say with a wave. “Ryan Gosling. How are you?”

“Hi,” she mutters weakly, still staring. Finally the woman peels her eyes off of me and looks at Molly. “You were serious?”

“Yes,” she says, exasperated but with a playful glint in her eye. “I told you he was coming to the store today.”

“I…” the woman falters, but instead of letting her flounder, I drop what I’m doing and go over to greet her.

“I didn’t know I was coming until today, either, so your shock makes sense.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, “I’m Becky.” She giggles nervously. “It’s one thing to hear your boss is dating Ryan Gosling, but it’s another thing to see him in person.”

“I get it. I feel that way when I see myself every day.”

She giggles again, almost cackling and I have to hold back a laugh. Molly clears her throat and we both look at her. For a second I feel like I might be in trouble. “Believe me, Beck, in a couple of hours you won’t even notice it’s him.” Becky smiles nervously. “Was there a reason you came back here?”

“Oh!” Becky exclaims. “I have a couple of customers requesting the Rub. Did you make any more?”

“Did I make any more.” She laughs at the question and turns around, grabbing six of the bottles I haven’t gotten to and separating them out. “How many?”

“They’re asking for three.”

“Three.” Molly leans forward and takes my job right out from under me as she slaps the product together. She steps forward with them and before handing them over, she pauses, looking from Becky to me, staring for a long time. “Becky, are your customers women?”

Becky doesn’t answer. Instead, she gasps. “That’s an awesome idea!”

“Go ring them up and I’ll send them out…” Molly says, and stares at me with an evil smirk on her face. I can tell she has an idea and I’m curious as to what I’m in for, “I’ll send them out with a bow on top.”

Becky squeals excitedly and leaves while I look at Molly in horror. “Please don’t put a damn bow on my head,” I beg her.

“No, not on your head,” she says, and before I can protest a second more she slaps a big red bow on my chest and arranges the bottles in a nice red store bag, shoving that into my arms before standing back to admire her work. “Dammit I am good,” she whispers as she stares at me. I open my mouth and she shushes me, “Hold on, it’s perfect,” she says, taking a step forward and reaching up to my hair, combing it a bit in her fingers before backing up and looking again. “God, you’re beautiful,” she says, a large smile now spreading across her face.

“Can I speak?” I ask her, unable to contain my own grin.

“No,” she says with a laugh but she comes up and gives me a gentle kiss, one that makes me forget to argue with this. I was okay with making a tiny appearance. Popping out with a damn bow… this could cause an incident.

When she pulls away, she turns me around and shoves me toward the front. I shake my head at her and the last thing I hear is her yelling “Thank you!” when I hit the swinging door. For her, this small humiliation is worth it, and the second I spot Becky and the store full of women, I feel the bottom fall out of my stomach.

The noise level of the store goes out of control. Molly emerges shortly after me and quiets everyone down, promising everyone that I will get a chance to greet them but to allow me privacy since I am here as a friend. I know that doing things like this for her aren’t the reason she’s with me but will definitely make up for the times when my celebrity feels like way more than she can handle.

The ladies I’ve brought the product out for fawn and prattle over me for a few minutes but with Molly hovering for crowd control, they understand they cannot hold up the line. For a little bit I stay and mingle with everyone in the store but I am also interested in actually helping Molly with the workload.

“How’s it going?” she asks me as soon as I walk in. She’s already finished up the labels, cleaned off the products, and is onto another project. She appears to be making more of her most popular Valentine’s Day lotion, something she affectionately calls the ‘Red Hot Rub-Down,’ a cinnamon and clove scented deep tissue mixture that is also purely edible and therefore can be used for massages that lead to Valentine’s night activities…

I already bought myself a bottle. I am overly anxious to try it myself.

“I’m great,” I tell her with a smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t finish your bottles.”

“No worries,” she says without even skipping a beat in her process. “I’m not. You were where you needed to be for a few minutes.”

“So I’m just a pretty face for hire?” I ask her, pretending to be indignant.

She gives me a large grin and sets her cinnamon bark down for a minute to slide around the table toward me, her hips moving seductively as she sways to me. I feel the urge to throw her on this table and take her right here pulse low in me, growling and hungry. Even in a smock with her hair messy and her face already speckled in cinnamon dust, she is utterly insatiable. My mouth waters the second she gets to me, her scent overwhelming me.

“I, uh…” she brushes the hair out of her eyes and stares down coyly before finding my hand and bringing it up to her lips and then against her cheek. “I intend to see that you are handsomely rewarded for your efforts.”

My breath catches and every ferocious hormone in my body screams in excitement, ready for the wait to be over. I stroke her cheek with my thumb, gazing down at her. Something in me is telling me to give into whatever it is and not worry about what will happen if this is just too much.

“You are really something,” I tell her quietly, because I cannot think of what else to say. I press my lips to her forehead and squeeze my eyes shut tightly. I just want to tumble into this with her and not worry about anything else, but the part of me that is considering Molly is so much louder. I did promise myself that I was going to think things through and consider what is best for everyone and not just for me.

I want Molly to be happy and I want her to be with someone she can put her trust into again. I want that man to be me, but my misgivings and my fear of the magnitude of my feelings for her are not trustworthy. I cannot be fair to her if I’m not giving myself a fair chance to think through what this all means.

It is a terrible situation to want someone so terribly but fear them at the same time.

Molly could be the end of everything for me and I have yet to decide whether this is good or bad.

“Everything okay?” she asks, pulling away to look up at me.

“Yes,” I say, definite. I am not going to let any of this get to me for the rest of the time I am with this beautiful woman. I can think about this stuff on my own… and maybe I won’t need to after a while. Maybe my fears will disappear the longer I am here.

Maybe being at home with this woman and understanding what it is like to truly be a part of her life will make me see that everything I fear is stupid.

So for the next few hours, I entertain the customers at Molly’s and while we are both exhausted at the end of the night, my added presence tripled Molly’s usual profits. That earned me a hug so tight I thought she might strangle me. She thanked me profusely and was so grateful that it brought tears to her eyes. I took her face in my hands and kissed the tears away, telling her that it was my pleasure to help her. The ride back is quiet, comfortable, and peacefully romantic.

By the time we are in the door, I know that anything Molly had teased earlier is not on the agenda for the evening. She is yawning as she kicks her shoes off and hangs her coat, so instead of breaking out any of my moves, I decide I’ll think more of what she would want at the end of this long day and I step up behind her, placing my hands on her shoulders. I rub them a bit and she groans, relaxing against my touch. I kiss her temple and whisper in her ear, “Would you like me to pour you a glass of wine?”

She moans and says, “Oh, you are the best.”

“I know,” I tell her, and take her hand to lead her into the living room. I know after a long day she likes to have a glass and curl up on her chair where she’ll either catch up on a new book she’s reading or zone out as she catches up on movies and TV. Tonight, though, I am going to pour myself a glass and be her company instead. She settles in and I get the glasses out, giving her a full glass while pouring myself half and returning to the living room where she is sitting with her eyes closed in the chair.

“Molly?” I whisper. She opens her eyes and sees the glass, sitting forward and taking it.

“Thank you so much,” she says, seating myself as she takes a drink. “Seriously… Thank you for everything today… I had no idea I could do so well in one day of business. Now I think I can afford to go forward with the spa.”

“Spa is what you’re thinking now?” I asked her, sipping the wine myself. It wasn’t bad. Fruity. “Last week wasn’t it still the yoga studio?”

“Yeah, but I just think incorporating my products into a day spa would be easier,” she says.

“That’s what you said two weeks ago,” I point out with a smile. “And then you said that you wanted to be part of a place that doesn’t just relax bodies but also makes them healthy.”

“But a spa makes a body healthy.”

“I’m not arguing that,” I tell her with a chuckle. “You’re the one going back and forth about it.”

“I know, I just can’t decide.”

“Do both, then.”

“Well, sure… someday.”

“Mol,” I say, sitting forward, gazing deep into her eyes, “you keep calling on some of your more famous friends and you might be able to afford that studio next month.”  
She scoffs. “I can’t do that,” she takes a swig, “I feel bad enough throwing you to the wolves.” She gives me a bit of a grimace. “I’m told that I can be kind of a monster in work mode. I don’t even think.”

“No, you’re definitely thinking,” I tell her, laughing. She laughs too, apologizing for the bow. I wave her off. “You’re not a monster, you’re just… Work-oriented.”

“Thanks,” she says with a sarcastic lilt.

“I mean that,” I say, rolling my eyes at her. “I’ve worked for monsters before and even in your most frantic work mode today you were still at least polite to the people that work for you,” I pause to swallow the last gulp in my glass. “And I think all of your friends would be more than happy to come help you. I had a lot of fun. It’s not like you run a biker bar and the patrons are causing fights. They were all delightful people and it was a fun, albeit exhausting way to spend the holiday.”

Molly’s worn face brightens when she smiles, a large warm beam that makes my heart skip a beat. “I wish I had something better planned,” she says apologetically, “I wasn’t even sure the entire time if you were going to make it for the holiday.”

“You don’t need to worry about it at all,” I tell her. “Being with you is my gift.”

“Ugh!” she says, but a smile tugs at her lips. “Why do you always say the perfect thing?”

“It’s easy with you,” I tell her and she scoffs yet again. Quickly, I bring up my music on my phone and start playing it as I stand up and walk to her, reaching my hand for her to take. Still smiling, she takes it and stands up. I bring her in close and begin leading her in a very simple boxstep around her living room. We change it up a little bit and I find that she is flowing with me rather well. “You are quite good at this,” I tell her, spinning her and bringing her in once again.

“My little sister is a dancer,” she tells me, wrapping her arm around my neck as I lean down for a dip. Her head flings backward and we pause for a second before I bring her back up and she stares into me, her eyes glittering. “I haven’t been dipped in a very long time.”

“Dipping is my specialty,” I tell her with a playful grin, tucking her back in close to me. “So little sister is a dancer and a lawyer, huh?”

“Was a dancer, is a lawyer,” she says, “and I took some dance with her until I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“How many years?”

“Probably five,” she confesses, something I did not know before.

“This is one of those things I needed to be here to learn.” I hear the words fly out of my mouth before I have any idea they’re coming out. I did not want to talk about our relationship. I wanted to let things take a natural course before I could decide.

“Sure,” she says, trying to sound flippant. Molly is cool that way. “And you are here now, so now you know it.”

We dance in silence for a little while longer, enjoying how it feels to be close. I wrap myself in her, resting my cheek against her head. I breathe in her scent, I kiss her soft skin, and I dare myself not to think about anything else. It is not important.

The song ends and we slow to a stop. Molly steps out of my arms and my heart pounds, aching for her to be close again. “You are a hell of a dancer yourself.”

“Well,” I say, brushing off the anxiety I have building up. “Lifelong performer, what can I say?”

“I could have guessed,” she says, flirty. She takes my hand and leads me to the couch instead of the two separate chairs and we sit close together. We are close enough for things to be dangerous, but she doesn’t make any indication that she’s going to be initiating it, so I hold back. “I like having you here, Ryan,” she finally says. The music on my phone changes and the melody is soft and soothing, punctuating what she’s saying to me. Her soulful eyes glitter underneath her lush eyelashes, hidden from what I can always decipher from them. “It seems to me the longer we’re together the more we find that we have in common, the closer we are…” She finally looks up at me and there it is, everything she’s telling me but not saying it.

The fear returns, flooding forcefully through my veins. I know what she’s going to ask and I know what she’s feeling because now that we are together, she’s right… We’re on the same wavelength, we understand one another, and I can read those eyes like they’re a script written just for me. I am not prepared to handle what she’s feeling because the truth is it brings to light the fact that I feel the same way.

“I… I know what you’re saying,” I say, because I cannot lie to her.

“And I know this is still early,” she continues, “so stressing a conversation about ‘where we’re going’ or ‘what we are’ shouldn’t be something either of us are doing… And honestly I wouldn’t do it if things weren’t going so well…” Molly is now averting her gaze. I think she senses what I can see and it’s becoming obvious that she doesn’t want me to know about it. I realize that she is struggling with these feelings and it is hard for her to talk to me about it.

The guilt builds inside of my heart, crushing everything good to which I am trying to cling. It reminds me that I am scared of what this means and that even though I want to embrace it, a part of me just can’t.

“Molly, we don’t need to talk about it yet,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m pleading. I just need this time with her, I need the time to get to know her and get over my fear of finding the forever I have always sought. I need the time to think and talk myself out of the fear before I act on it.

“Well, we might not need to, but I’d like to,” she says, her tone quiet and small. Molly’s asking for things always breaks me because when she really needs you, she is less than who she is. It saddens me because I don’t know what must have happened that made her feel like she can’t reach out and ask for help. I cannot refuse, so I nod and gesture for her to continue. Wordlessly she nods in thanks and starts. “I just want you to know that I’m not making any demands of you at all,” she tells me and I smile at her, relaxing a bit. She seems nervous and I don’t want her to be. “I just need to be clear about us… Our boundaries, our guidelines, and yes, a bit of a discussion of the future.” I nod, understanding. “I appreciate your understanding… I just like to know what I’m getting myself into. I watched my best friend struggle with this kind of situation and I want to be up front about it.”

“I completely understand,” I say, my voice less than confident. I straighten up and clear my throat a bit, “and I don’t blame you at all. Um… let’s see. Well, I can say on my end, at least, since you and I started talking and seeing each other, I haven’t seen anyone else. If that helps.”

“It does,” she says, nodding with the shadow of a smile on her face. “I’m not talking to anyone else, either.”

“Good,” I state simply and that makes the shadow a bright shining light, spreading across her gorgeous rose lips. “I’ve been looking at my schedule over the next few months,” I tell her, “and really up until about Halloween, I’ve got a lot going on just for the movie I’m filming here soon. After that, my schedule is kind of my own… So, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere.” I finish this last bit with a smirk but she is not laughing about it. She seems a little more serious.

“Okay,” she nods for a second. “I guess we can just talk about it as it comes.”

I stiffen. She is trying not to push me but because she’s holding back she’s not getting all of the answers she wants. As badly as I do not want to discuss this because I am so confused myself, I really don’t want her to feel like she can’t speak her mind with me. I’m not one of those men.

“I’m just going to come out with all of it, okay?” I tell her, sitting forward and looking her square in the eyes. She stops dead, her wide eyes set in fear, waiting for me to say what I’m going to say. “I don’t mind telling you that at some point down the road, I would like to settle down.” She nods, looking a bit uncertain. “I’m personally not a huge fan of marriage, which is why I’ve never been married, so is that on the table? I don’t know. I’ve never given much thought to having kids –” at this I see an immediate reaction, so I switch tack, “but none of that matters. At some point, I do want to be with one person forever. That’s what everyone wants.”

“Yeah,” she whispers quietly, “and sometimes you find people who say that five or six times before you realize that one person doesn’t really exist.”

I want to respond to her but before I even have a chance to process a thought, my cell phone rings. I am literally about to apologize when Molly’s goes off as well and we are both caught up in our phone calls. I turn and answer mine, walking out of the living room quickly to hear. I hear my agent telling me that whatever I am doing in Detroit has to wrap up quickly because filming in London has been pushed up by a month and will begin in a couple of weeks.

I hang up the phone and lean up against the wall before returning to Molly in the living room. On this new timeline, I will have to leave Molly’s tomorrow to do my now abbreviated tour of downtown Detroit and catch a flight next week. I did not want to have to do it this way. I wanted to have my time with Molly so that I could fight my fears, maybe give her a definite answer about the future. I want to be with her but I need to be sure. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? It is the rest of my life that I’m playing with, here.

I swallow everything I’m feeling and round the corner, walking back into the living room where Molly is still poised on the couch, having just finished her own phone call. Her face is bright but also worried. I frown and bend down to her, saying, “Sorry about that, it was my agent. Are you all right?”

“Yes and no,” she confesses with a sigh, turning to me.

“What’s going on?”

“Okay,” she exhales. “So, your appearance in the store today not only increased my profits instore, but they increased online, as well as our social media footprint,” her breath is shaky, “we were apparently trending today. Whatever that means,” Molly rolls her eyes, indicating she does know what it means. “Anyway, because we’re doing so well, I went ahead and texted Tom and Chris to see if they wouldn’t mind making in store appearances in the coming weeks, and so far, Tom is on board,” her phone goes off and she checks it. “He’s super on board.” She smiles and shakes her head, texting him as she mutters, “Oh my god, don’t come every week. I’ll need to hire security.” She pockets the phone and apologizes.

“So what’s the no then? This is all great news!” I tell her, genuinely excited for her success.

Her shoulders sag as she stares at me. “Because of all of this, I’m going to e working like, nonstop for the entire week you’re here and probably out from there,” she confesses. “I feel terrible.”

“Don’t.” I say, immediately waving her off. I was literally just bracing myself to come in here and tell you that my schedule has been pushed up a month. I have to get to Detroit as soon as possible.”

She looks disappointed and I feel terrible about it. She gives me a brave, not quite there smile, and says, “I guess it’s for the best. I’ll be almost too busy to blink come the next two weeks.” She looks put out but exhilarated at the same time and I cannot blame her. Her world is not built up around me and she has her own passions to pursue. It’s why I feel so deeply for her.

I allow for no other preamble. I jump forward and gather her to me, hugging her close and squeezing her tight. I am so overwhelmed then with the idea of losing her after only having her back for twenty-four hours that I forget everything else. My nose starts to tingle with the tears I know are starting to gather in my eyes. I do not want to cry in front of her because one of us needs to be hopeful that things can still work out, that we can figure things out even though our lives are so chaotic.

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly as I hold her, swaying and breathing her in while I beg the tears not to come. I can understand now why Sam and Tom faced such a difficult decision and why their story panned out that way. One week together in the flurry of such a crazy existence is truly better than nothing.

“What do we do now?” Molly mumbles against my chest and it takes me several seconds to realize that she is not speaking rhetorically and expects and answer.  
I sigh heavily, taking my time to contemplate my words because I do not know what is next. I want to at least act like I have the answers she needs.

“We go with it,” I tell her, still choking back the tears. They are not as dangerously close to the surface right now but any word spoken could bring them forward in an uncontrollable rush. “Right now, things are crazy…but that doesn’t mean we can’t still talk, we can’t still see this… to wherever it’s going.”

“Where is it going, Ryan?” she asks, breaking from my embrace and composing herself. “What are we doing right now? What will this all lead up to, if we just keep ending up apart?” She wraps her arms around herself and stares up at me. The jade jewels speak to their anxiety. She is not trying to push me but it is there, under the surface… a question she is dying to ask. She wants to know what comes next and she has every right to ask.

She wants to know if I love her.

My heart breaks in two and all I want is to give her the answer she needs, the answer I am just too scared to give right now. “Molly… I don’t know what to say. I can’t know what is coming.” I say this carefully.

She pauses, looking at me in utter confusion. “You do know what is coming. You are an adult! You set your schedule, you say yes to the projects you take on and you, ultimately, will be the one who decides whether your hectic career is worth giving up or toning down for the person you want to grow old with.”

“Molly…” I whisper, and I reach out to her. For the first time since I have met her, she backs away from me and the pain in my heart from this action hurts ten times worse than anything else I know.

I think, however, judging by her reaction that I may be too late to take it all back. I hesitated too long with a woman not quite willing to put her trust on the line yet. Molly’s eyes find mine and they are full of tears, which instantly make mine mist. It is just too much to bear, knowing that I have brought her this pain because I am a frightened idiot.

“Molly… Please, you don’t understand.”

She glares at me then, her expression changing to anger almost instantly. “Don’t understand? I don’t understand what it’s like to be overwhelmed and busy? I don’t understand what it’s like to try and trust someone brand new when I’ve been hurt multiple times in the past? Is that what you’re saying I don’t understand?” She scoffs and turns her head before giving me a chance to respond. “I’m trying my hardest to not push you about things, to not try and force the idea of commitment on someone I’m not sure can or will–”   
“Come on, Molly,” I protest quietly when she says this, “-commit, but I’m thirty-two, divorced, and just completely unwilling to play games anymore. With things picking up for me and the past still biting at my ass every time I try and take a chance… I just need to know what I get myself into before I do it. I need to know…” she takes a deep breath, “I need to know whether the risk is worth it.”

Her anger fades a bit and the flush in her cheeks isn’t as prominent. I stare at this goddess before me, watch her tumultuous thoughts and feelings flash in a pair of eyes that speak so clearly and I wonder if it is worth putting her through anything this terrible anymore?

“I get that,” I tell her. “I do know that what I need…” I brace myself because I need to just get it out of my mouth or I’ll back down. I can’t look at her, I can’t touch her, I can’t even think about her too clearly. I turn my head and sniffle because the tears are making a resurgence. I can’t cry. “What I need is for you to trust me, because I want to do this right,” I say, easing into it. I want her to know that I care about her and that this isn’t me using cheap excuses to get away from her. “I can’t charge full steam into this without taking some time to really think about what it means to do that…” I stare at the floor, trying so hard to avert my gaze that it hurts. “There’s just something… something so big happening and I need some space to make sense of it,” I look back up at her, see the shocked look on her face as though I’ve slapped her. The pain in my heart intensifies.

“I… I mean, I guess you’re entitled to ask for space,” she says, her voice choked with emotion so tightly that she almost speaks in a whisper. “It’s not like I’m your girlfriend or anything like that, so…”

“No, Molly, that’s not what this is about…” I tell her, again stepping toward her. This time she doesn’t back away but she turns her head and that’s just as bad. “I don’t need to get away from you because I can’t commit… I just want to think. You and I have something… otherworldly.” When I say this, I say it quietly and intimately, so much so that it finally seems to relax her enough so that she’ll look up at me. “Don’t you think it deserves some careful thought?”

Molly’s shoulders shudder as she finally straightens up and lowers her arms, her posture opening to me, more trusting. I can’t help but feel relieved and I feel myself relax as well. She stares up at me, reaches a hand to my face and brushes my hair back, grazing my forehead with her fingertips. A chill goes down my spine. She takes a step closer, laying her palm flat against my chest. Another deep breath and she gazes up at me. “I don’t want to hold onto you if you’re not coming back.”

“I’m coming back.” I whisper to her, my face inches from hers. My heart starts to hammer. This is the situation I wanted to avoid. “Before I leave for London, I’ll come back and I’ll have had that time… and we’ll figure it out.”

She blinks a couple of times. “You mean… Two weeks? That’s all you need?”

“That should be more than enough, Molly,” I touch her face, not wanting to forget what her skin feels like against mine, especially because I never really got to feel her. “I don’t want to leave before we decide what we’re doing.” She puts her head against my chest and wraps her arms around me again, holding me tight. “I’ll come to the store if I have to,” I say, “and we can figure it out.”

The next few minutes are silent and we hold each other, because things seem like they’re at a good point. Molly sighs deeply and then whispers, “I’ll be waiting.”

We break apart shortly after and the next morning when my car arrives in the morning, our parting is bittersweet. We kiss and promise to talk when we see each other again.  
With the certainty that what I am doing is best for everyone involved, I ride off and feel the anxiety of my decision already weighing down on me.

It weighs on me for two weeks but I know that my decision is best every time I think about the tears in Molly’s eyes. The look of disappointment. The way she backed away from me.

Two weeks pass and I head east instead of west. I get on a plane to London.

I close my eyes and finally shed the tears I’ve been waiting two weeks to cry, because this is truly the end of what I thought could have been the rest of my life, but I know I’m bad for Molly.

Now she knows, too.


	6. Six - Hers

Six – Hers

Present Day

“Are you comfortable back there?” I ask begrudgingly.

“Well, that depends on what your definition of ‘comfortable’ is,” Ryan replies, shifting slightly. I have to deposit him in the backseat of my Camry because of his leg and even so, it is a tight squeeze. Ryan’s not short. “If ‘comfortable’ means having a broken leg shoved in an itchy cast, sitting with half my ass on the seat and no way to properly wear a seatbelt then yes, I’m fucking comfortable.” He grumbles for a minute and tries to adjust himself amidst a self-made chorus of ‘Oh’s and ‘ow’s.

“Ooh, feeling saucy this morning, are we?” I ask with an eye roll.

“I’m sorry if I’m not Mary-freaking-Sunshine,” he snaps bitterly. I am not at all affected by it. In fact, I’m surprised he’s not ruder. “I didn’t want to go home doped up so all I’ve had is a couple of ibuprofen. Doesn’t quite have the balls to take on a broken leg, but I’m dealing with it.”

“Yes, and well,” I comment, knowing I shouldn’t bait him. Thankfully he only glares at me in silence. I fight the urge to smile and sigh heavily. “So,” I say, clearing my throat, “tell me exactly what the hell happened.”

Ryan stares at me, half quizzical and half irritated. “I told you, I was coming from my lawyer with the paperwork to get to you when I got hit by a car.”

“No,” I say, rolling my eyes yet again. “Not your accident. I mean the marriage. What the hell?” Out of nowhere, anger starts to bubble up furiously in my chest and I have no way to control it. I am not even entirely sure where all of it is coming from but out of nowhere I blurt out, “How the hell were we both stupid enough to be married for a year and have no clue? And how long did you know before you bothered to tell me?”

His eyes widen and he is taken aback. “Molly, geez, why are you getting so mad at me?” He huffs and fixes an angry stare on me. “You and I are adults and we clearly both made a rash, stupid decision,” he spits the word back in my face, “For your information, I had only known about it for a week before I got here to get in touch with you.”  
“Still too long,” I grumble angrily, just looking for reasons to be furious with him.

“It took me that long to get things arranged to get here.”

“That’s right. That career you’re not in control of.”

“Can we not? Please?” he begs. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

I scoff bitterly and pull down my street. “That makes two of us.”

Once we pull into my driveway, I help Ryan out of the car and into the house. I brought in the one bag of things he had with him, unmoved by the fact that we’ll have to go out at some point soon to get him more crap, and trail in behind Ryan. He stands on his crutches in the middle of the room, looking around slowly. The last time he was here we were in a much different place than we are now and the house, this room in particular, is alive with the memory of it.

“Uh,” I clear my throat and step around him cautiously, walking as far out of the room as I can without having to make him chase after me. “So I made up the guest room for you,” I tell him, pointing toward it, “I’m sure you remember,” I wait for him to make it to me and I take him in there, setting his bag down on the bed. “The bathroom is right in here,” I only point because we both know he remembers. “Just in case you wanted to take a shower, I brought in some garbage bags,” I shrug, “you know, the stuff they give you at the hospital usually doesn’t work as well.”

He nods and curls his lips up almost as though he wants to smile but can’t come much past a grimace “Thanks,” he tells me, the first words he’s spoken in almost ten minutes. He sits on the bed and sets the crutches down, grabbing the bag before I walk over to leave the room. I do not care that he wants his privacy, we’re not really married.

“If you need anything, just let me know.” I am about to curtly turn and leave but I stop before I reach the door and taking a deep breath, I turn back. “Actually, if you’re hungry, I was just about to make some lunch.”

“I’m… I’m okay, actually,” he says, swallowing heavily as he stares at me. “I ate before I left the hospital and I’m not… I’m not really feeling too great anyway. I was actually going to take a nap.”

I can tell by the look on his face that there is more than what he is telling me but he does look worn. He also seems pretty desperate to not look so worn. I’m sure my presence while he is in a weakened condition is only adding to the overall aggravation and I can respect that. I only give him a half smile and nod, closing the door on my way out.

I don’t see him for several hours afterward and I hear nothing from his end of the house until well into the evening. I have given myself the next few days off so that I can make sure Ryan is not going to hurt himself trying to hobble around the house. After that, I have to get back to manning the store until my manager gets back from her vacation. It is about to be an extra hectic few weeks because of this and now I’ve added an ailing spouse slash ex kind of…

I shake my head and decide if I have any hope of getting through this first evening here with him I will need all the help I get. I pour myself a generous glass of red wine and take a drink, hoping that the thought of him anywhere near me will stop bringing about all of those latent hormones and just make me angry, like the rest of him does.

I still have no clue what it is about the man. He can read me within an instant. Most of the time I know he could see things I was feeling before even I knew about it. The connection he and I share, or at least used to share, was something special and real. It would have been easy for me to forget every promise I’d made to myself to take things slowly and carefully so I would know what I was getting into. It was that amazing that quickly with him and I knew I was going to fall in head over heels and probably just come out bruised.

Turns out, I was right. Ryan had made a promise to me that he would come back so we could talk about our relationship. All I asked was the conversation. I wasn’t asking for a commitment. I wasn’t demanding anything and I had certainly not given any ultimatums. I wanted to know what I was in for. I wanted to know whether it was worth falling in love with him.

I spent two weeks doing it anyway. Against my better judgment, I fell more and more with every passing conversation away from him. Every time he smiled and I thought of him coming back to me, I fell harder. I knew, without a doubt, that this connection was something incredibly special. Only an idiot would have ignored something that great.  
I waited at my store all day, ready to tell him that. I even kept the lights on three hours past closing time.

He was the idiot that ignored something great.

The guest bedroom door pops open then and a steamy freshly male-scented vapor comes down the hallway before Ryan hobbles closer. It makes sense why it took him so long to come out now, because I see that he is freshly scrubbed from head to one set of clean toes. His hair is still wet but drying quickly, combed down and parted to one side. My breath catches when I look at him because I forgot how strikingly handsome he really is, even when half of his face and side are covered in angry looking scabs. Other than the general malaise of having been in an accident, he appears in decent spirits so I give him a simple smile, not too warm, and invite him to sit.

“Do you want a glass?” I ask, tipping it toward him as he hobbles painfully to the chair and settles in.

“Normally I would say no but if getting hit by a car doesn’t warrant a glass, I don’t know what does.” He says all of this with the shadow of a smirk under the grimace of pain. For a second I see the Ryan that was here the last time and it is nice.

I serve him his glass and he mumbles a thanks, taking it and a huge sip. The silence stretches for a while, fraught with so many lingering questions, feelings, and other tense matters that will never allow for us to be fully comfortable with one another again.

It strikes me as I gaze over at him that for the last year, I have been married to the man sitting in front of me. All of the conversations we had in the past come back and I remember how he wasn’t ever sure he would get married, because it didn’t seem necessary to prove his commitment with a piece of paper. I recall thinking that he was probably right. Marriage hadn’t done anything for me, either.

Now we sit here across from one another, married strangers. Once upon a time the idea of spending the rest of my life with him wasn’t so bad and it was a logical thing to imagine. I recall the few times we were together and things felt easy, comfortable. I wish I could feel that way instantly with every person I met. It would make finding the love of my life infinitely easier.

Not that I was looking.

“How have you been, Molly?” I hear him whisper across the room. I am startled by the noise, being so deep in contemplation.

“Oh,” I say, coming to myself and taking another sip of wine, finishing the glass. “I’m well, actually,” I tell him, unable to suppress my smile. The memories I have of us are overwhelming and I recall how supportive and excited he was for me about my business. “I opened up that day spa,” I tell him and his face brightens considerably. “Yeah, I was able to finally get it off the ground at the beginning of the year and it’s been doing very well.” For the first time since we’ve been reunited, I see Ryan’s lips turn up into a genuinely happy smile and it is hard not to fall into it. I look away quickly just in case he still possesses that uncanny ability to know what I’m thinking and distract myself with pouring another glass of wine. “Yeah, it’s actually doing so well that we’re going to be adding on the yoga studio beginning of next year.”

“Wow, Molly,” he breathes, his smile steady. He shifts in the chair and winces in pain slightly before saying, “I really am happy for you. I’m glad things are going so well for you.”

I want to say something sarcastic about our history to that retort but his voice is so sincere that I don’t want to be the one that ruins the moment unnecessarily. “Thank you,” I whisper, turning away and putting my lips against the glass. Once I’m finished, I set my glass down and sigh. “How are you?” I ask. “I don’t really keep up, you know, media wise, so…”

“Oh I wouldn’t expect you to,” he says with a rueful smirk. “Things are going well. I was keeping pretty busy for a while but uh…” before he continues he chuckles, “I had actually just made the decision to go on hiatus, and then, well you know…” He indicates his leg with a simple head nod and shakes his head. “Just my luck. First vacation in years and I get hit by a damn car.”

I shrug absently. “Better now than in the middle of filming a movie,” I point out. “Imagine the hassle.”

“It sucks, no matter what.”

“No arguments here.” I say, and I recall that he was hit while on a motorcycle. He’s not a great fan of helmets, but I am so grateful that he wears one anyway because if not…

My heart starts to hammer in my chest and I feel the familiar tug of fear pulling at me. It seems crazy that the idea of losing someone I don’t have would affect me so much, but I suppose when someone means that much to you once…

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell him quietly, trying to convey that I really mean it. I even maintain eye contact.

His dark, ocean blue eyes stare into mine for an extended second and a knowing glint passes his face. “I know you are,” he says, and that’s when I realize he can still read me like a book.

We are quiet again and when I finish my wine, I set the glass in the sink and sit down with him at the table. We’re now close, close enough for me to see all the marks on his face and how badly they must ache. He watches me watch him, that narrow stare I know so well. He is piercing me, trying to figure out my secrets. When he doesn’t say anything right away, I find that I can’t handle it much longer.

“What is it?” I exclaim. “What do you want to know? Just ask!” The anger feels better, more comfortable. It’s easy to forget what he did when I’m around him. He has a way.

“Why are you so angry?” he asks me, avoiding my question entirely.

“Was that really what you wanted to ask me?”

“No. But I’d like to know.”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me that.”

“It’s a fair question, Molly.”

“Ryan, it’s a stupid question,” I get up from the table, unable to comprehend why he is playing dumb. “You know exactly why I’m so angry.”

“Because of what happened Valentine’s Day?”

“You’re damn right!” I yell, much louder and angrier than I intended. Now that the fire is stoked, though, it is aflame. “I can’t believe you would even pretend that it isn’t still an issue!”

“That’s because I thought it wasn’t.” He seems genuinely puzzled. “It’s not like that was the last time we saw each other.”

At this point I am fuming. “Are you kidding me? We fought, got drunk, and got married. It’s not like there was time or opportunity for us to work all of that shit out.” He appears just as confused as ever. “Just because I woke up in Vegas with an accidental husband doesn’t mean I’ve automatically forgiven everything.”

“I could have sworn we worked it out,” he whispers to himself.

“No,” I say, now so mad that I am on the verge of tears. “No, I never got an explanation, an apology, or even the courtesy of knowing you weren’t coming.” Ryan starts to breathe a little heavier and I put my hand up. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t bring all of this up. And since I’m the one making the promise, I know it’ll be kept.”

“Molly,” he growls at me, but I shake my head and storm out of the room, because the longer I stay the angrier I’m going to get. Ryan clearly has no intention of relenting on this subject and I can’t keep pushing.

I shut the door to my room and slide down onto the floor, exhausted. I don’t let myself cry because I can’t be weak about this. I know I’ve got to take care of him until he’s patched back up, because I gave him my word that I’d be there.

I just don’t know how I’m going to do it for six weeks.

*

The next couple of days pass in a very tense, strained silence. The only time Ryan and I converse is when I let him know food is ready and he grumbles an angry thank you after gorging and hobbling back to the guest room. I don’t feel bad about him holing up in there because at least he’s not around me, making my life more miserable.

By Sunday, though, we reach an impasse when Ryan needs a hand getting dressed. It seems to take a real hit of his pride to ask but I agreed to help him out, so I open the door to the guest room where he is standing in only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, looking as exasperated as I’d ever seen him.

“I wouldn’t ask unless I had to,” he tells me, stiff. He points at a loose pair of mesh basketball shorts that are on the floor. “I’m usually pretty good at getting them on but I dropped them today and I just can’t bend over.”

I kneel down and pick them up, intent on getting him dressed as quickly as possible but I stop the second I smell them. “Oh my god when did you last wash these?”

“Well, it’s been about a week and a half,” he says with a noncommittal shrug but his face is apologetic. “I was busy getting hit by a car.”

It is right then that the tension breaks and I can’t stop the giggles that burst from my mouth. Ryan seems surprised but after a few minutes he joins in and before long we are both laughing to the point of tears. The weight of all the anger I am carrying around starts to relieve itself.

“Oh my god,” I say after our fit of giggles dies down a bit. I wipe my eyes and shake my head. “I should probably wash these before you try to wear them another day.”

“I don’t have anything else wearable,” he tells me, “that’s why I didn’t say something sooner.”

“Well you should have,” I say, my face twisted in disgust. He smiles at me in earnest and I smile back at him, grateful for this reprieve. He seems to be as well. “Why don’t I wash these and I’ll run in town real quick and grab you a few things. You’re not particular about what you wear, are you?”

“Clothes?”

“Okay, smart ass,” I say. “Until then do you think you can survive in your underwear?”

“I think I can manage.” A grin.

“All right,” I take the shorts and hold them far away from me, “before these are declared hazardous material, I’ll be starting a load of laundry.”

I laugh, shaking my head as I head to the laundry room where I fill the washer with dirty clothes and toss the shorts on top. I start the washer and close the lid, turning to see that Ryan has hobbled after me. I cry out and jump back.

“Oh my god you scared me,” I say, putting my hand on my chest. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, handing over a bundle of clothes. “Just figured you’d want to wash the other couple of things I’ve had to keep rewearing.”

“Oh sure,” I say, shaking my head and lifting the lid to add them. “There. Now I’ll go get ready and head out.”

“Okay,” he says and stands back so I can pass by him. I start heading to my bedroom but before I make it down the hall, I hear, “Hey, Molly.”

I stop and turn back toward Ryan, coming into the living room where he is standing. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say…” he starts but before he can, I cross the distance between us and stand in front of him.

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” I tell him. We are in a good place and if we’re going to get through these next two months together, we have to learn to be friendly. The last thing I should be doing is digging for information that I may not want. It’s not like we’re going to be staying together, so I do not need an explanation at all.

Sure would be nice, though.

“If we’re going to get through this and come out the other end alive, we have to learn how to deal with each other,” I explain. “Which means I need to quit picking.”

“I just wanted to apologize,” he says and I sense he wants to continue but I don’t want him to.

“You don’t have to,” I insist. “I want you to forget about it and let’s just… be friends. Okay?”

His face is momentarily unreadable but he nods. “Sounds okay to me.”

“Good,” I say, turning around and heading to get ready. I turn back and pause for a second. He’s not looking at me, he’s staring at the ground, frowning deeply. I know he’s lost in thought but I can’t imagine why. “Ryan?” I call and his head snaps up to me, his expression still blank. “Uh, is everything all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he tells me and shakes his head, as if trying to get rid of the thought. “Yeah.”

“Okay…” I stare at him for a second longer but I try not to let myself fall into it. I know what happens when I involve myself too deeply with him. I can’t make that mistake again. I’d given him a chance and he broke my heart. There may be a lot I need to say to him but there’s nothing I should. So instead, I clear my throat and ask, “What size shirt?”

He lifts his head again and his eyes are distant and sad. “Medium.”

*

On Monday morning I found myself back in the storefront. Ryan had informed me that morning that he wasn’t feeling nearly as banged up as he had before and would be fine on his own for the day. I didn’t want to worry too much but couldn’t help but feel bad for someone that couldn’t get around easily.

Ryan advised that I get back to my routine so after I made sure he had my new cell and work number I got ready and came in. With my accountant out with her new baby and my manager enjoying herself at Disneyworld with her kids I am slightly shorthanded and a bit frantic at the store. I have one full-time employee at the store currently and two part-time girls scheduled to be here at different times during the day. Luckily, September is a slower time for us so it gives me time to start making up the big batches to store for the holiday season. It also lets me have quiet time alone to think.

For an entire year, I’ve been married. I’m glad I don’t have a more active social life, otherwise this would be a very hard thing to explain. Ryan’s reappearance along with this startling discovery is still so unexpected that even after spending the last five days with him I am still trying to wrap my head around it.

There is so much that has happened between us that it almost seems a shame to want to throw it all away so quickly. I know it is the right thing to do. I can’t risk getting my heart broken a second time by this man. If things had just gone a little differently, maybe this marriage wouldn’t be just a drunken mistake. Maybe it’d be real.

But as it stands, it is something I have to fix as soon as possible. 

I finish up the batch I’m working on and I cover it up to throw it in the fridge to set up. I wash my hands and head out to the front counter and stop dead when I see my cashier Nancy talking to a gorgeous, good-looking man who gives me an appreciative smile as I exit.

“Hi,” I say, smiling. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, Molly! You have to meet my nephew, Bryan!” Nancy cries, rushing toward me and taking my arm to drag me forward. Nancy is a fifty-something matronly, warm woman that has been dying to set me up with various family members ever since Ryan and I broke up the year before. As of yet, I have been unwilling to meet any of them.

This time, it seems, she’s ambushed me. Her timing is impeccable. And his name is Bryan? Why?

“It’s nice to meet you, Molly,” he says, reaching his hand out. He has a deep, booming voice and I can’t help but be impressed. He’s crazy good looking, tall, with a full head of thick, dark hair and a five o’clock shadow that makes his scruffy, handsome face that much more rugged.

“You too, Bryan,” I tell him, smiling widely and trying not to act like the idiot I feel. “So, what is it you do?”

“He’s a pediatric surgeon!” Nancy crows proudly, beaming up at him. “Studied at the University of Michigan.”

“I did my fellowship there,” he corrects her. “I studied at Purdue.”

“Wow,” I comment, genuinely impressed. “That must be a tough job.”

“It has its ups and downs,” he tells me with a grin. “I actually do have to get going, but it was nice to meet you, Molly,” he says warmly and gives his aunt a kiss on the cheek before running out the door.

I turn to my employee and arch an eyebrow at her playfully. “What?” she says, feigning innocence. “He was in the neighborhood so I suggested he stop by and visit his favorite aunt.”

“Oh, amazing how a pediatric surgeon just happens to need to stop by an organic bath and body store during his downtime,” I say knowingly. “If you hadn’t noticed, he didn’t get my number so I think you missed the mark anyway.” It hadn’t occurred to me until just then that he didn’t ask and I have to admit, I am disappointed. It is probably all for the better, after all. What with Ryan in my life and this marriage business not taken care of yet, it could end up get really complicated if I try to date someone else.

I choose to give it no more thought. I turn to walk away from her and she clears her throat. I turn back and see she is holding her phone up.

“He just asked for it.”


End file.
